This post has been updated.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) on Sunday tried to reconcile his acceptance of gay friends and his fierce opposition to same sex marriage ahead of a potential run for president in 2016.
On “State of the Union,” CNN’s Dana Bash asked Huckabee about a chapter in his book, “God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy,” in which the former governor wrote about his relationships with gay friends.
“I don’t shut people out of my circle or out of my life because they have a different point of view. I don’t drink alcohol, but gosh, a lot of my friends — maybe most of them — do. I don’t use profanity, but believe me I’ve got a lot of friends who do. Some people really like classical music and ballet and opera. It’s not my cup of tea.” Huckabee said on CNN. “I hope the party doesn’t change its overall view, but the very fact that I talk about relationships I have with friends who are gay, indicate that I’m not a person who shuts everybody out around me who disagrees.”
Huckabee said that for him, same sex marriage is a religious issue.
“This is not just a political issue. It is a biblical issue. And as a biblical issue, unless I get a new version of the scriptures, it’s really not my place to say, ‘Okay, I’m just going to evolve.’ It’s like asking somebody who’s Jewish to start serving bacon-wrapped-shrimp in their deli. … or asking a Muslim to serve up something that is offensive to him or to have dogs in his backyard,” he said. “We’re so sensitive to make sure we don’t offend certain religions, but then we act like Christians can’t have the convictions that they’ve had for over 2,000 years.”
The former governor also affirmed his view that the Supreme Court cannot change states’ laws on gay marriage.
“We don’t change law because some people in a black robe just decide they don’t like the fact that 70, in some cases 80 percent, of a state’s population have affirmed natural law marriage,” he said.
