Mike Huckabee responds to 'hateful bigot' accusations: 'I refuse to deny God's law'
Despite being dubbed a “hateful bigot” and “mean-spirited conservative” by left-leaning websites, Mike Huckabee has said he will not apologize for identifying the redefining of gender and sexual identity as the “greatest threat” to the moral fiber of America.
On Saturday, Huckabee took a moment on his TV political commentary program on TBN to address the backlash he experienced following an interview with The Christian Post.
“I need to warn you that according to some recent news articles, you are watching a show hosted by a hateful bigot,” Huckabee told the audience. “And that was about the nicest thing that was said about me.”
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The host of “Huckabee” explained that during his interview with CP, he was asked to identify what he believes is the biggest threat facing culture.
“So I replied that I thought it was the abandonment of the biblical standards of family, the view that there is no such thing as maleness or femaleness anymore, and that marriage doesn't really matter, that divorce is no big deal and that any form of marriage is equally valid, not just between a male and a female,” he said.
“I also said that it's that fathers don't seem to be that important to the development of a child, that gender is fluid, and that we can just choose a gender based on how we feel rather than how we were created, and that the Bible is some old book that no longer represents our changing culture,” he continued.
The former Southern Baptist pastor said that since CP’s article went live, “virtually every left-wing publication in the country” has blasted him for “homophoboic and anti-LGBTQ hate,” including Huffington Post, Right Wing Watch, Pink News and others.
But Huckabee pointed out that he never specifically mentioned the LGBT community in his interview: “My main point was that the reason for so much cultural confusion and moral decadence was the Christian Church. Too many modern churches have decided to preach a Gospel that just doesn't offend anyone by basically saying, ‘Just do whatever you feel about.’ And so we have ignored, or maybe dismissed, biblical standards so that we can be modern, relevant, in touch, hip and relatable.”
The host of the No. 1 program on TBN clarified that while he doesn’t believe God wants His people to be “obnoxious, judgmental, hateful, our self righteous,” Christians must “challenge our culture to tune itself to God's truth rather than demand that God tune Himself to ‘my truth’ and our culture.”
Before playing an instrument, every musician must tune their instrument to a fixed, absolute note on the musical scale — or chaos and noise will result, he explained.
“I want to be very clear. I don't hate anybody, I really don't,” he said. “But I refuse to ignore or deny God's law or natural law, and if I fail to tune my life to those standards, how can I hope to make music of my life? When every instrument in the band plays according to its own standard of tuning, the result [is] chaos and noise. The instruments are not the same in tone or volume or sound, but they do join together to make music only if they agree on the tuning device.”
Huckabee said that while all people are free to live how they desire, they are not free to tune their lives to what they think, feel, and believe instead of a standard that God has created.
“Otherwise you'll end up with a result that is anything but beautiful,” he said. “Now, if that makes me a hateful bigot, then it's because those who labeled me that are tuned to a different standard.”
“So with no apology, I'll do my best to tune my life and beliefs to God's unchanging standard rather than to ask Him if He could rewrite the Bible and tune His standards to me,” he concluded.
In his interview with CP, Huckabee argued that the “gender dysphoria we're seeing today is largely due to the fact that the Church has failed to present very clearly the words of Jesus and Genesis 5:2: ‘Male and female He created them.’”
Huckabee pointed out that society today celebrates single parenting and posits the idea that fathers “really aren’t necessary” when it comes to raising children.
“There are some people who are in single parenthood, not because they want to be, but because they were forced to be. And we ought to give [them] all the support,” he clarified. “But we should never pretend that it is as good as a loving mother and father in a home where a child sees both genders play out their norms because that's the modeling of behavior that would be ideal for a child to grow up in.”
The Church, he contended, needs to clearly present a biblical view of gender and identity — even though it’s not considered “politically correct.”
“People are afraid that if they are really biblical, it will alienate people and I think that's nonsense,” he said. “Yes, it will alienate some people who are more interested in preserving the lifestyle they have chosen than a lifestyle that will be practical and will work. But it will also be a lifesaver for the people who are really looking for genuine truth.”
Watch Huckabee's comments below.
