Mike Huckabee Expects Civil Disobedience in Response to Gay Marriage Ruling
— -- Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee suggested Sunday that Christians opposed to the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of gay marriage will carry out civil disobedience in response to it -- and that, if elected president, he might put up a nativity on the White House lawn.
"I don't think a lot of pastors and Christian schools are going to have a choice," the former governor of Arkansas and Baptist minister said on ABC's "This Week." "They either are going to follow God, their conscience, and what they truly believe is what the scripture teaches them or they will follow civil law."
The Supreme Court ruled Friday in a 5-4 decision that gay and lesbian couples had a constitutional right to marry.
Huckabee, who has long opposed gay marriage, said Christian business owners, university presidents and school administrators could be inspired by how Martin Luther King Jr. pushed back during the civil rights movement, and that county clerks shouldn't have to carry out the Court's decision and issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples.
"If they have a conscientious objection, I think they should be excused," he said.
Huckabee stopped short of saying that, as president, he would refuse to enforce the ruling, explaining he would wait to respond to any "enabling legislation" Congress passed.
"I'm not sure that every governor and every attorney general should just say, 'Well, it's the law of the land,' because there's no enabling legislation," he said.
Huckabee also took issue with the rainbow-colored lights that lit up the White House on Friday night.
"If I become president, I just want to remind people, that please don't complain if I were to put a nativity scene out during Christmas and say, 'You know, if it's my house, I get to do with it what I wish despite what other people around the country may feel about it,'" he said.
