This may strike you as a bit unhinged.
“I think it’s fair to say that Christian convictions are under attack as never before. Not just in our lifetime, but ever before in the history of this great nation. We are moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity.”- Mike Huckabee, cited in Politico, from a conference call organized by the Family Research Council
It’s actually quite a bit more crazy than it may seem at first.
Huckabee is under the impression that the Supreme Court in on the verge of making a ruling on gay marriage that will have the effect of making it a civil, and possibly a criminal crime for a religious leader to refuse to participate in a gay marriage. This is a continuation of the misunderstanding that I tried to address yesterday. To use myself as an example, I was married for nine years. The mayor of New Hope, Pennsylvania conducted our ceremony. He did so on a voluntary basis, but the point is that he wasn’t a religious leader. Yet, I was still considered to be married under the law. I had a right to get married, which meant that some clerks were obligated to give me a certificate once I followed the required protocols. But no one was obligated to preside over the actual wedding, and no Supreme Court ruling would change that so that I could go into court and argue that so-and-so discriminated against me and denied me my rights by failing to accede to my demand that they show up at and preside over my ceremony.
Beyond this legal point, however, Mike Huckabee is confused about Christianity. This is a religion with many followers who have diverse beliefs. Christianity is not a word that is synonymous with opposition to gay marriage, and it’s insulting and presumptuous to go around talking about how widespread social and legal acceptance of gay marriage is a marginalization or criminalization of the religion as a whole.
So, Huckabee is wrong on two counts. First, he’s wrong about how the Supreme Court’s ruling might impact religious leaders and he’s wrong about what it would mean even if he was correct.
In addition to this, he’s simply nuts about how our country works.
Huckabee said that he cringes whenever he hears people call a court decision “the law of the land.”
“And I’m thinking, how many people passed 9th grade civics? This is not that complicated. There are three branches of government, not one,” he said, adding that when a court rules in favor of same-sex marriage, that does not mean that licenses should be issued the following day.
The likely presidential candidate told the pastors that opponents of gay marriage are “pariahs” among the “ruling class” and donors. He also noted that “supposedly conservative donors and conservative office holders are running away from the issue.”
“If the courts rule that people have a civil right not only to be a homosexual but a civil right to have a homosexual marriage, then a homosexual couple coming to a pastor who believes in biblical marriage who says ‘I can’t perform that wedding’ will now be breaking the law,” he said. “Let me make clear: It’s not just saying, ‘I’m sorry you have a preference.’ No, you will be breaking the law subject to civil, for sure, and possibly criminal penalties for violating the law, depending on how the law is written in communities, states and in the nation.”
Huckabee told the pastors that if they do follow their convictions according to the Bible, “your behavior will be criminal.”
“Once the courts have been allowed to run over us and nobody stands up for us in the other two branches of government, then God help us all,” he said.
The totality of the statement is delusional, crazy, and wrong. All of it.
The courts have the final say on what is and is not a constitutional law. The end. You can learn this in a 9th grade civics course.
Finally, the Supreme Court has a conservative majority so if they rule against Huckabee’s position on gay marriage, it can hardly be said that the liberals ran roughshod over the conservatives. All it will prove is how far out on the fringe Huckabee’s views have become.
I would hope and expect that all 9th Grade civics teachers are cringing. Maybe his old civics teacher can smack him down, I mean, correct him.
This is actually a common misunderstanding of the nature of marriage in the US, and it’s a misunderstanding that the leaders of anti-equality efforts have made efforts to spread and encourage. It’s a central part of the money-making and vote-getting scam.
So the question becomes — as it often does with Repubs these days — is Huckabee ignorant or is he lying?
To your question, Huckabee is well-paid. QED
The culture war is a primary strategy of distraction on behalf of the 1% Republicans.
First, Huckabee is not confused. He is grandstanding to confuse other people.
Second, it is not just the Supreme Court decision that has him worried.
The Episcopal Church governing body filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the upcoming Supreme Court case arguing for striking down bans on gay marriage under an equal rights under the law argument. The Episcopal Church claims its right under the first amendment to conduct same-sex marriages on an equal basis as opposite-sex marriages.
And the discussion in the United Methodist Church has moved to the point that local United Methodist Churches are declaring themselves “reconciling churches” under the rainbow symbol and it is possible that at its 2016 Quadrennial Conference the United Methodist Church joins the Episcopalians and Presbyterians in allowing same-sex marriage as a religious rite. Moreover the Evangelical Lutheran Churches of America and moving forward with the same conversation.
One wonders exactly what kind of traditional Baptist Huckabee is these days. It seems his tradition starts in 1979 with the Reagan campaign.
As I am sure you know, he is a Southern Baptist. And since the conservative faction took the SBC over in the 1970’s, they have been at the forefront of every single civil rights issue since that time. The problem has been that they have been on the WRONG SIDE of every equality issue there has been.
I also know that the SBC has been losing congregations as affiliates.
Yes, the SBC rolls have been in a steady decline for a while. And I have my doubts that they will come to the realization anytime soon that it is their doctrine that is killing them off. That very self righteous attitude is what drove me away from their ranks, and religion in general, thirty years ago.
How can the self-righteous be sure of being among the Elect of God if everybody gets saved? The thinning of the flock merely confirms them in their sanctity.
The word “Southern” in the title of the denomination “Southern Baptist Convention” is the giveaway. In the 1840’s the Baptists in the American South broke with the Baptist denomination over the issue of whether Southern Baptist Preachers could own slaves and established the Southern Baptist Convention.
The Southern Baptists also preached that the Bible supported slavery, and after Reconstruction, that it supported segregation. They did not disavow this teaching until sometime in the 1990’s, well after Huckabee dropped out of the Seminary to take over an Arkansas church.
“We are moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity”
If only.
I’m gratified to see Huckabee volunteering to be among the first to be crucified, however.
I would love to meet the Huckster so I could ask him to show me where his Christ says anything about opposing gay marriage. And when he fails, as he will, I would proceed to smite him on his right cheek…
I’m willing to give Huckabee the benefit of the doubt and conclude he really does, with all his heart, believe the crap he espouses. His message rings with millions of Americans for reasons Hoffer gave back in 1951:
Resentment:
Invoking my conclusion, Huckabee shares and, due to his TV and radio shows, validates the resentments of the New Poor. Thus, he is the leader and spokesman for a mass movement.
I think it is a serious mistake to think Huckabee is “on the fringe.” He is smack-dab center in a movement that has millions of members – voters – and whose reach and influence extends to millions of “loosely attached voters.” By sheer numbers and due to our political system the political power these numbers exert Huckabee, et. al., are more in the mainstream than Progressives.
I suppose, then, that progressive efforts to help the poor are misguided seeing as they support our political opponents.
The reach of fundamentalism and dominionist theology runs deep and wide through a huge segment of the Republican Party. To a rational person who is inexperienced with their philosophy and their motivations, they do seem to be a fringe group. But they pull the levers on a significant portion of our Congress and many state legislatures. Their power is incredible. People ignore them at their own peril.
Seems as if the Huckster and Mike Pence have been hanging out together at the Wackadoodle School of Constitutional Law.
In fairness to the Huckster, he’s thinking of the court decisions forcing Catholic priests to perform marriages for divorced people, forcing rabbis to marry couples in which one, or both, is not Jewish and forcing Episcopal priests to officiate at weddings even when no champagne is served at the reception.
Ouch. I came so close to googling the first one. My Snark-O-Meter needs recalibrating.
I think Huckabee is just a huckster selling snake oil to the gullible. The anti-gay fringe is plenty big enough to provide a good market for his books, TV shows and paid appearances after his publicity campaign masquerading as a political campaign. A low-overhead company can stay in business selling replacement parts for betamax recorders (or whatever). A tiny fraction of a percent of a population is still a substantial business opportunity for a low-overhead niche business. Even if only 10% of the country opposes gay marriage, that’s a ton of lambs to the slaughter for whatever products you want to sell them. In the Huckster’s case, his target audience even donates money to pay for his ads and travel expenses.
yeah – crazy… Check out this crazy dude. He’s convinced too. BooMan is missing the point.
“As much as I would like to say that this is not a “war” we are in, I would point out that the view looks very different from the point of view of men and women who are losing their jobs and their livelihoods, or who are facing that realistic prospect, because of this. An insider at a major US Christian college today sent me a shocking report about some behind-the-scenes activities in which a senior professor is facing the loss of his job for defending his own church’s position on LGBT issues. It’s happening.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/sexual-revolution-andrew-sullivan-michael-lindsay-gord
on-college-lgbt/
Lol Rod Dreher is the epitome of “why won’t these gays stop sucking my cock!”
As the Great Chief Justice observed in Marbury v. Madison, “it is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial department to say what the law is.” That was in 1803, Guv’nor Mike.
But, as many have observed, Hucksterbee (and the Rightwing Noise Machine) obviously are not out to explain anything to the citizenry, they are out to mislead and poison them with “conservative” sewage.
On the other hand, it will be quite a spectacle should Kennedy upset conventional wisdom by siding with the Scalians…that will be another memorable 5-4 defeat for progressives. But today’s “conservatives” are so drunk with victory that if they don’t triumph in literally every significant decision, the Court is “LIB’RUL!!!”