Mike Huckabee may have the most delusional reaction to nationwide marriage equality

The arc of the moral universe bends toward injustice, the GOP presidential hopeful suggests

By Sophia Tesfaye

Senior Politics Editor

Published July 6, 2015 3:37PM (EDT)

  (AP/Keith Srakocic)
(AP/Keith Srakocic)

Former Arkansas governor and current GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee told a group of Southern Baptists on Sunday that he believes the Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutional right to marriage for same-sex couples will only lead to fewer same-sex marriages as Americans of faith unite to push back against the Court's decision.

According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Huckabee spoke at a Fifth of July celebration at the Rock Springs Church, a megachurch in Milner, Georgia, that also featured Jep Robertson of “Duck Dynasty,” music by the Charlie Daniels Band and a firework spectacle. But Huckabee made headlines earlier in the day when he told the gathered crowd that the same-sex decision by the "extreme court" who lead to a revolt by people of faith.

“Over the next few years I fully believe that people of faith, whether they Christians, Jewish, whatever they may be, are going to be called upon, and already are, to determine, ‘Will you serve God or will you serve government?” he said. “And I wonder, will we be as faithful to our faith and to our freedom as those men who signed that declaration 239 years ago?”

Huckabee repeated his attacks on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court's decision, “the courts of man can no more suspend the definition and law of marriage that it can suspend the law of gravity. They simply don’t have that much power.”

Polls suggest that 6 in 10 Americans support the Court's decision establishing same-sex couples' constitutional right to marry.

Huckabee previously called into question the Court's ability to rule on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, telling "Fox News Sunday," “judicial review is exactly what we have lived under; we have not lived under judicial supremacy. The Supreme Court can’t make a law; the legislature has to make it, the executive has to sign it and enforce it. The notion that the Supreme Court comes up with a ruling and that automatically subjects the two other branches to following it defies everything there is to equal branches of government.”

Huckabee is currently polling among the top 5 Republican presidential candidates.


By Sophia Tesfaye

Sophia Tesfaye is Salon's senior editor for news and politics, and resides in Washington, D.C. You can find her on Twitter at @SophiaTesfaye.

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2016 Elections Lgbt Mike Huckabee Religion Same-sex Marriage Scotus Supreme Court