Huckbee Claims Gay Marriage Leads To “Criminalization Of Christianity”

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee is calling legalization of same-sex marriage a move towards the “criminalization of Christianity.”

“I think it’s fair to say that Christian convictions are under attack as never before,” Huckabee said Thursday, according to audio of the call obtained by Right Wing Watch, a project of the progressive advocacy group People for the American Way. “Not just in our lifetime, but ever before in the history of this great nation. We are moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity.”

The former governor of Arkansas, who is expected to announce his presidential bid on May 5, said it is his “biblical duty” to pray for the members of the Supreme Court as they prepare to rule on same-sex marriage this summer.

Huckabee also appeared to be defending gay conversion therapy. He did note a trend among Republican donors which upsets him but I see as a change for the better: “supposedly conservative donors and conservative office holders are running away from the issue.” Many Republicans realize this is a battle they have lost and are moving on.

Huckabee’s statements show  the distorted view of the religious right on the role of religion and government, and why the Founding Fathers were right in establishing a secular state based upon the principle of separation of church and state. Respecting gay rights based upon support for individual liberty does not limit the legitimate rights of Christians. They certainly are not forced to enter into gay marriages (and I’m not sure how Huckabee would respond to those Christian homosexuals who do exist). Despite the paranoia of some on the religious right, legalization of same-sex marriage would not mean that churches opposed to homosexuality would be forced to perform gay marriages.

The only “right” which Christians would see limited is the “right” to use the power of government to impose their religious views upon others. This is what the religious right is fighting over.

6 Comments

  1. 1
    David Duff says:

    Christians under pressure by the Feds?  No, no, no, nothing to see here, move along!

    “This administration’s war on religion is also seen in the monitoring of Christian churches by the IRS in response to a lawsuit filed on December 27, 2012 by the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) concerning sermons that are considered by the political left to be political speech by tax-exempt organization in alleged violation of federal law. These sermons, often criticizing ObamaCare’s encroachment on freedom of religion through its mandates among other issues, are considered electioneering by the atheist left.”
    Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/04/the_irs_vs_the_church.html#ixzz3YOcs4jJC

  2. 2
    David Duff says:

    And then there was this:

    “Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took a feminist tone on Thursday. She told attendees at the sixth annual Women in The World Summit that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” for the sake of giving women access to “reproductive health care and safe childbirth.””
    Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/04/hillary_channels_madame_mao_deepseated_cultural_codes_religious_beliefs_and_structural_biases_have_to_be_changed.html#ixzz3YOe3y2Nc

  3. 3
    Ron Chusid says:

    The fact that you could come up with nothing more than these examples from an inaccurate right wing source reinforces what I said.

    The first at most deals with removing tax exceptions for behavior which under law a church should lose its tax exemptions for. Yet despite this churches continue to engage in political action without losing their tax exceptions.

    Your second example involves reducing the restriction of rights due views which against allowing such freedoms.

  4. 4
    David Duff says:

    Well done, Ron, no uncomfortable point ever faced head on!

    I found those in under two minutes, so do you really want me to shake the internet tree for further examples of Federal/Democrat pressure on Christians and their organisations?  And will it be OK with you if the Republicans, when they get their turn, sick the IRS on to all those quasi-Democrat organisations starting with, say, “the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF)”?

  5. 5
    Ron Chusid says:

    There are no uncomfortable points to face from your argument. Conservatives love to play the victim, but their claims of religious persecution is just a myth.

    We know that Republicans will restrict liberty more when they are in office–that is their philosophy. Your example is in no way analogous. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is not restricting anyone’s ability to practice their religion. Nor are they seeking tax exceptions as a church.

  6. 6
    Philo Vaihinger says:

    Gomer Pyle is actually right.
    The gay rights culture warriors have for some time silenced opponents of gay marriage with varying uses of social pressure and will soon deny government aid to organizations that oppose gay marriage as surely as they do organizations opposing inter-racial marriage.
    But that is the tip of the iceberg.
    The moral teaching regarding sex of organized, orthodox, traditional Christianity, based as it is both on the Bible and on the doctrine of the natural law as ingrained over 2,000 years, regards sex as morally acceptably only for procreation, and historically that has always meant approval only of intercourse without contraception.
    Indeed, no sex of any kind is approved outside the context of monogamous marriage, permanent in theory at least, between one man and one woman, the chief natural and divine purpose of which is having and raising children.
    That narrow view has historically justified and encouraged, guilt, self-loathing, and disgust for masturbation almost as much as for homosexuality, as you may be old enough to appreciate.
    And it has rationalized the most severe punishment for homosexuality and frightful legal and cultural persecution of gays.
    The truth is that Christian anti-Semitism was much less deeply embedded in essential Christian teaching than is gay-hating.
    The traditional churches like the Roman Catholics have been able to end their own anti-Semitism and turn around to firmly oppose it without changing their doctrine regarding the death of Jesus, though many Jews and others of their more radical critics have demanded such changes.
    But that it not possible with regard to church teachings that have incited gay-hating.
    Think of it this way.
    All they had to do about anti-Semitism was insist no Jew not actually present in Jerusalem at the time and actually, personally demanding the death of Jesus is in any way morally implicated in that event, though it is crucial to Christian doctrine that in another sense, of course, all humanity is implicated.
    It was not necessary to renounce and deny, as some demanded, the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ death.
    But the only way to expunge homophobia from Christian teaching would be to scuttle altogether the Biblical and natural law teachings regarding sex that together make anything at all not directed to reproduction morally wrong, contrary to divine law and God’s will, etc.
    And that single, central moral claim underlies absolutely every aspect of Christian teaching regarding sex, marriage, the family, sex roles, and the whole Christian social and political teaching so far as these are key elements thereof.
    There is no way the churches can dump this while in the least significant degree remaining in moral and doctrinal continuity with historic, traditional, orthodox Christianity as elaborated over the last two millennia.
    Only the liberal churches, churches that have effectively abandoned Christianity for deism, atheism, or mush, can and mostly have abandoned that core moral teaching regarding sex.
    That means that, while the Christian churches were not, as some argued even at book length, essentially committed to anti-Semitism in doctrines definitive of Christian orthodoxy, they really are essentially committed to homophobia in just that ineradicable way.
    And that means they are and have been from their origin engines of hatred, loathing, and persecution of gays.
    Theirs is inescapably a teaching of hate.
    As time passes, gays and their political allies will demand more and more that they be so regarded and treated by the law.
    In practice, that will raise interesting questions about, say, tax exemptions as well as eligibility for government assistance of any sort, school certifications, and many other things.
    Probably people will be asking what should be the position of the government toward secular hate groups like the neo-Nazis, but also religious or quasi-religious ones from the KKK and white identity Christians through the Nation of Islam all the way to the orthodox churches.
    And considering the growing sentiment, mostly on the left, that hate speech ought not to be tolerated not only by private persons, organizations, or institutions but also by the law, Gomer is right to sweat.
    IMHO.

Leave a comment