DENVER — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee suggested Saturday that conservatives treat the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision like Abraham Lincoln treated the high court’s pro-slavery ruling in Dred Scott: Ignore it.
“They can do same thing that Abraham Lincoln did about the Dred Scott decision of 1857,” Mr. Huckabee said at the Western Conservative Summit. “The Dred Scott decision said that African-Americans were not fully human, that they need not be treated as fully human.”
“He [Lincoln] simply ignored the ruling and said, ’That’s not correct,’ ” Mr. Huckabee said. “And by the way, it may sound like, ’Oh, that’s an extreme position.’ Actually, it’s a constitutional position. Here’s why: If we acquiesce immediately without review, without the other branches of government, it goes back to my point, that this is judicial tyranny.”
He also said he wanted to warn his liberal friends — “both of them,” he joked — that an activist court can swing the other way.
When that happens, “I hope they remember their jubilation,” Mr. Huckabee said.
The Republican presidential hopeful and former Fox News host took a jab at President Obama for reversing his past opposition to same-sex marriage.
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“If he has so radically changed his view and now he believes that same-sex marriage is the best thing that could happen to this country, one of three things is true: He was either lying in 2008, he’s lying now, or God rewrote the Bible and Barack Obama is the only one who got the new edition,” Mr. Huckabee said to applause and laughter.
Mr. Huckabee is one of six would-be GOP presidential nominees scheduled to speak at the three-day conference hosted by the Centennial Institute at the Colorado Convention Center.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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