Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) told a crowd in Iowa on Tuesday that he’s just “on the right side of the Bible” in opposing gay marriage, “not homophobic.”
Delivering the keynote address to the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, Huckabee said he didn’t “care what people do personally in their individual lives,” according to CNN.
“I’m not against anybody. I’m really not,” he said. “I’m not a hater. I’m not homophobic.”
“But … when people say, ‘Why don’t you just kind of get on the right side of history?’ I said, ‘You’ve got to understand, this for me is not about the right side or the wrong side of history, this is the right side of the Bible, and unless God rewrites it, edits it, sends it down with his signature on it, it’s not my book to change,'” he added, as quoted by CNN.
The former Arkansas governor, who is mulling a second presidential run in 2016, also referred to the Supreme Court’s decision to decline to hear the case of a wedding photography business that refused to offer its services to a gay couple. That case helped inspire “religious freedom” bills, like the one Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) recently vetoed.
“Why is it that Christians stand back and take it in the teeth time and time and time again?” Huckabee said, as quoted by CNN. “But we cannot change this country if we do not rise up and vote with an informed mind and a committed spirit and if we’re not willing to stand along.”
