Lake Hassen-Lieben, Oklahoma — “I don’t care how many billions of dollars mega churches make right now,” presumptive 2016 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (R-AR) told a gathered crowd at a recent rally in Lake Hassen-Lieben, Oklahoma, “if these Washington elite liberals get their way, and two adults are free to marry each other without fear of legal retribution, we might as well just call it a day — Christianity is over, and they will make being a Christian illegal one day too,” the evangelical Christian told his audience.
The idea that one day laws will be written to make Christianity illegal is not a new theme in Huckabee’s rhetoric. Last week he told a crowd at an event held by the militantly anti-gay Family Research Council — a group given the top rating by the Council to Determine How Many Clearly Closeted Assholes Work for a Particular Company — that the country is “moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity.” Huckabee, say folks on The Hill, is trying to secure himself the votes of the Religious Right, with perennial presidential candidate and America’s reigning”Thou Doth Protest Too Much Contest” winner eight years straight Rick Santorum still on the sidelines for 2016.
“Oh sure,” Huckabee sarcastically said, “the lamestream media and the godless liberals will tell you that I’m talking from my backside, just because the First Amendment of the Constitution clearly forbids any government from making any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, but who are you going to trust? The people who told you that giving tax cuts to the wealthy will create jobs for the middle class, or the people who tell you mankind is heating up God’s gift to us all to the point that we’ll all die if we do nothing?” Huckabee paused a moment. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“First the gays want to be treated like humans,” Huckabee exasperatedly told the crowd. “Then, the very next day you’ll see the ACLU lined up at the front steps of the Supreme Court with papers, ready to serve the United States Government. And you know what their lawsuit will be,” Huckabee said. “It’ll be ‘end all religion and put Christians in the lions dens and force them to have sex with people of the same gender, but then force them to have sex with people of a different gender so they get pregnant, and then force them to have an abortion live on TV while the denounce their Christian god.’ You know that’s coming.”
“Sure, the Mormon church clears about 7 billion bucks a year,” the Republican conservative told his audience. “Sure, Joel Osteen has an estimated net worth of over $40 million. And yes, I guess if you want to be all technical and accurate about it, Rick Warren has a net worth of roughly $14 million, but all this proves is that the Lord blesses those who aren’t afraid to stand up for him, and hand a dish over to people who make far, far, far less than they do and demand that money be put in that plate,” Huckabee took a moment for the teleprompter to scroll.
“So yes, it would seem really stupid of me to imply in a country that literally has as its first clear-cut rule not to mess with religion and that has managed to afford televangelists the ability to amass enormous fortunes that Christ himself would facepalm over would make Christianity illegal, but I’m a Republican. And saying dumb, nonsensical stuff in an angry and suggestive tone is how I get votes, but it’s also how we Republicans think, if we’re thinking, which we may not do at all.”
Huckabee ran for president in 2008 and didn’t make it out of the primaries. In 2012 he was rumored to be running, but never officially declared his candidacy. In January he ended his show on Fox News and many feel that is the strongest indication yet that he is either running for president or considering having a few brain pathways scraped out, allowing a free-flowing stream of thought through his brain that doesn’t stop in 1934 rural Arkansas.
