Mike Huckabee warns that Republicans risk losing the vote from evangelical Christians if they back away from their opposition to gay marriage.
Last week, Ohio Sen. Bob Portman announced he has reversed his position and now supports gay marriage.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee and ordained Southern Baptist minister was asked if he sees the GOP ever pivoting and backing gay marriage.
They might. And if they do, theyre going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk, he responds.
And its not because theres an anti-homosexual mood, and nobodys homophobic that I know of, but many of us, and I consider myself included, base our standards not on the latest Washington Post poll, but on an objective standard, not a subjective standard.
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I have great sympathy and extraordinary admiration for Sen. Portman. I consider him a friend and I value his work in the Senate and think hes a great person. The mistake is that we sometimes base our public policy decisions on how we feel, how we think, maybe even some personal experiences, and we dont regard a lot of these issues from the standpoint of an objective standard.
Let me explain what I mean by that. If we have subjective standards, that means that were willing to move our standards based on the prevailing whims of culture. Politicians have an obligation to be thermostats, not just thermometers. Theyre not simply to reflect the temperature of the room, or the culture, as it were. Theyre to set the standards for law, for whats right, for whats wrong, understanding that not everybodys going to agree with it.
On this issue, I recognize the culture is moving away from the traditional standard, but its almost like saying, well, we have a basketball team and nobody on the team can hit the goal thats 10 feet off the floor so were going to lower the goal down to six feet and that way everybody can slam dunk the ball.
So the question is, have you have improved your basketball game? Or have you actually just changed the standard so it looks like youre doing better? And thats my concern.