During a critical commentary on judicial activism and same-sex marriage, Fox News host Mike Huckabee said Republicans should "grow a spine," adding that he was "utterly disgusted" with fellow Republicans for walking away from the issue.
"I’m utterly disgusted with fellow Republicans who want to walk away from the issue of judicial supremacy just because it’s not politically viable. Here’s my advice: grow a spine. Show a modicum of knowledge about the way we govern ourselves, and lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way," he said on the Oct. 12 episode of "Huckabee."
Story continues below video.
Huckabee, who was a candidate in the 2008 presidential primaries, was reacting to the Supreme Court's announcement that it would not hear gay marriage cases this term, effectively allowing several states to move toward legalization of same-sex marriages.
Last week, the former Arkansas governor said he would consider running for president in 2016 as an independent because the GOP has walked away from evangelicals on values issues.
"I don’t think the GOP is going to walk away from the entire body of values voters — but if so, then there would likely be no place for me as a voter or candidate,"
he told Newsmax by email Thursday. "I wouldn’t be leaving them; they’d be leaving us."
Gay marriage is emerging as a somewhat divisive issue as more leaders and strategists in the party have openly campaigned for gay candidates and expressed an openness to legalizing gay marriage.
For example, House Speaker John Boehner last week attended a fundraiser in California with Carl DeMaio, an openly gay congressional candidate, reports
San Diego's Fox5 News.
For evangelicals, gay marriage remains an important issue and will remain so in 2016.
"I don’t think you will see social conservatives supporting a candidate who will reject the traditional definition of marriage," Russell Moore, the head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention,
told NBC News.
In June,
Pew Research reported most evangelicals remain opposed to gay marriage, including 70 percent of white evangelical Protestants and 49 percent of African-American Protestants.
However, some evangelicals are re-examining how their opposition is communicated.
In a joint interview in
Christianity Today, John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell, the authors of the recently released book, "Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage," acknowledged some will call evangelicals "hateful bigots no matter what" but, they added, "There are a few things we can do to be most effective."
"First, we need to be very clear on what marriage is and what it is not. Marriage is not the government or church’s endorsement of strongly held, even sincere, affection. It is an institution central to the human experience by which children are best produced, protected, and promoted," they said.
Related stories:
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.