George Takei: Kentucky clerk like George Wallace

Former “Star Trek” star and gay activist George Takei is lashing out at the Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, arguing she is a modern-day George Wallace.

“To her supporters, she is the Rosa Parks of religious liberty, someone who finally said, ‘enough is enough, I have rights, and I will fight for them,’ ” Takei wrote of Rowan County clerk Kim Davis in an article for MSNBC.

{mosads}“When I view her behavior, however, I am reminded of a different character from the early civil rights era: Gov. George Wallace of Alabama,” he said.  “For him, the sanctity of white privilege was a cherished way of life.”

“As with Davis, supporters of the old order cheered Wallace’s brazen stand,” Takei added, comparing Wallace’s battle against racial integration to Davis’s fight against same-sex marriage. “And like Davis, Wallace was more than just words.”

Davis was released from federal custody last week after repeatedly refusing to recognize marriages between same-sex couples.

She announced on Monday that she is not planning on interfering with the practice further, provided her name is not on any marriage certificate recognizing it.

Takei, who has a huge following on Facebook and other social media, argued on Tuesday that the national furor over Davis’s position resembles a similar debate over desegregating public schools during the Civil Rights era.

“Here, marriage equality, like desegregation, tells an already wary conservative base that their belief system, and their exclusion of certain members of society from rights and privileges they themselves enjoy, is not only wrong but illegal,” Takei wrote.

“The weight of the law, once so firmly in their grip, has now suddenly shifted to operate against them, and now they are the ones who will go to jail if they don’t concede defeat,” Takei said of Americans opposing same-sex marriage.

Takei additionally charged that Davis, like Wallace, is fighting a losing battle against public perceptions of equality.

“Happily, the days when overt racial discrimination and segregation are championed by social conservatives are long past,” he said.

“Discrimination based on sexual orientation is headed to a similar, inevitable end in the dust heap of history,” said Takei, who is openly gay.

“And as with Gov. Wallace, decades from the day Davis stood her ground we will no doubt look back and wonder above all why so many stood with her,” he added.

Takei’s remarks come as he plans on fundraising alongside President Obama and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for sexual orientation equality in New York City later this month.

Davis’s stance on same-sex marraige following the Supreme Court’s legalization of the practice in Obergefell v. Hodges last June sparked weeks of national debate.