Did the Ft. Hood Shooter Get to Keep His Beard on Religious Grounds?

Our weekly check in with the Texas Truth-O-Meter.

By Alain StephensSeptember 23, 2015 8:30 am

In the days before the second Republican presidential debate, candidate Mike Huckabee flew to the side of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who went to jail rather than issue same-sex marriage licenses. Davis said it violated her religious beliefs to put her name to the forms that would allow such marriages.

During the debate, Huckabee said Davis represented an example of judicial tyranny.

“We made accommodation to the Fort Hood shooter to let him grow a beard,” Huckabee said. “We made accommodations to the detainees at Gitmo — I’ve been to Gitmo, and I’ve seen the accommodations that we made to the Muslim detainees who killed Americans.

“You’re telling me that you cannot make an accommodation for an elected Democrat county clerk from Rowan County, Kentucky? What else is it other than the criminalization of her faith and the exaltation of the faith of everyone else who might be a Fort Hood shooter or a detainee at Gitmo?”

Gardner Selby of the Austin American-Statesman’s fact checking project, PolitiFact Texas, joins the Texas Standard to talk about Huckabee’s claim about the Fort Hood killer’s beard.