Crazy Uncle Huckabee
ON JULY 2, PRESDENTIAL DOUBTFUL Mike Huckabee published an op-ed on FoxNews.com detailing his commitment to creating a safer space for Christians in this country. Because, as history has shown, they are certainly the ones that need the most protection. The piece, entitled ‘Surrender to judicial tyranny? I will protect religious liberty, not retreat,’ (it sure does gird the loins, doesn’t it?) outlines his plans to restore religious freedoms should he be elected our next head of state.
Stefanie Cochrane
After the June 26 Supreme Court decision to ban bans (yes, yes!) against same-sex marriage, some have called the ruling detrimental to the very ideals of freedom and liberty that this country is built on. Huckabee has been one such outspoken critic. Let us pray. And shake our heads.
His essay opens: “America didn’t fight a revolution against the tyranny of one unelected monarch so we could surrender our religious liberty to the tyranny of five unelected lawyers. The Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being, and the Court can no more repeal the laws of nature and nature’s God on marriage than they can the laws of gravity.” The Supreme Court is not attempting to walk on water here, but it is dishing out the long-awaited equal treatment for all Americans that all Americans are deserving of. Huckabee’s case centers around the US Constitution’s First Amendment in terms of its protection of freedoms, religion included. As you know, the amendment reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Huckabee cites these words as not only the backbone of arguably the most American amendment, but also uses them as a means to justify the systematic discrimination used by some (not all) religious groups against the LGBT community. He calls toward the heavens to find this ultimate law, but fails to recognize that not all are governed by Huckabee’s God. One’s faith is directly proportional to the way they live their life, but not the way that others must live theirs. By adducing the laws of nature with a tinge of religiosity, Huckabee tears down the very point he is trying to make. If we have freedom to practice our chosen religion, we also have freedom from it.
No one is saying that Huckabee and his brothers and sisters under the Big JC aren’t entitled to their opinion, however ignorant it may be. What is up for discussion is the dangerous line between participating in one’s own belief system and using it to devalue the beliefs or lifestyle of another person. Though the Constitution makes no direct reference to the separation of church and state, the First Amendment ensures that the two entities do not intermesh.
Same-sex marriage is not a religious issue — it’s a human one. One’s bed and partners therein are no business of anyone except those tucked under the sheets. That includes you, Uncle Mike. If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get gay married. Not everyone believes that marriage is strictly defined as being between as a man and a woman. Not everyone believes in that God, a God, or whoever she is. So everyone should then have the freedom to participate in whatever they do believe in. Love. Disco. Iced coffees. The First Amendment protects the believer’s right to DO. Why wouldn’t it shield those that DON’T, as well?
Discrimination is not a policy, it’s a weakness. In the wise words of the late, great George Carlin, there is a law that we all can abide by: “Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.”
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