Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — and potential Republican candidate for president in 2016 — said enough is enough, that if the GOP doesn’t stand up and fight against gay marriage, he’ll go his separate way.
And there are plenty of others who feel similarly, he said, in an email to Newsmax.
“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. “I wouldn’t be leaving them. They’d be leaving us.”
He said that if the Republican Party “abdicated” on same-sex marriage, then he would have little recourse but to switch his political affiliation.
“If the Republicans want to lose guys like me and a whole bunch of still God-fearing, Bible-believing people, go ahead and just abdicate on this issue — and go ahead and say abortion doesn’t matter, either,” Mr. Huckabee said, during an interview on the American Family Association’s “Today’s Issues” radio show. “Because at that point, you lose me. I’m gone. I’ll become an independent. I’ll start finding people that have guts to stand. I’m tired of this.”
His vow came on the heels of the Supreme Court turning down an appeals request from five states to decide the outcome of their bans on gay marriage.
Mr. Huckabee’s views also come as several notable leaders in the Republican Party have adopted views in favor of gay marriage. Speaker John Boehner, most recently, has reached out to openly gay members of the party seeking political office to lend his campaign support.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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