Mike Huckabee: The Constitution v. "the Word of the Living God"

by Damozel | So we've reached the point where Huckabee's emergence into "serious contender" territory has officially stopped being entertaining to me, however amusingly much it might annoy certain conservative pundits who pandered to the Christian right when it suited their perception of their interests to do so.   

Via Memeorandum, here's one of the reasons I'm not laughing:

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Huckabee often refers to the need to amend the constitution on these grounds, but he has never so specifically called for the Constitution to be brought within "God's standards," which are themselves debated amongst religious scholars. As a closing statement he asked the room of nearly 500 supporters to "pray and then work hard, and in that order," to help him secure a victory in Tuesday's GOP primary.  (MSNBC; emphasis added) )

In other words, forget the principles built into the Constitution by the Founding Fathers, forget our country's tradition of neutrality toward the religious views of individual citizens and principle of noninterference; forget separation of Chuch and State; forget that this is a democracy, not a theocracy.    

As a person with strong Quaker leanings, I get very nervous when one version of Christianity concludes that it knows what God's standards are and that those standards should therefore become the law for everyone else, including those who see God quite a bit differently. While I am modestly certain that I can muck in with the best when it comes to God-bothering and proficiency in prayer, I don't force Mike Huckabee to go to my church and I don't care to go to his. "Horses for courses," as my British husband (an atheist) puts it. As Christopher Hitchens has said, "Mr. Jefferson, build up that wall!"  It's the only way to protect Christian denominations from other Christian denominations, not to mention the only way to protect Christians from Christopher Hitchens (and vice-versa, of course).

But Huck does want to build up one wall:  the fence between Mexico and the US.   Next:  the Tower of Babel.  We're coming for you, Jesus, ready or not! Can I hear you say, "Hallelujah!"?   

Fortunately, my silent prayers that Huckabee fade gently back into state politics have received what a religious person might view as a sort of provisional response. True, it's not the answer I wanted:  among the Republicans, I definitely prefer McCain to the others by the vague but presumably vast stretch known as a "moonlight mile."  Even so, the Romney predominance in Michigan shows that Huckabee does not in fact have God's unwavering endorsement, as a few weeks back his supporters seemed to be gleefully assuming.  Perhaps God, like the Founding Fathers, believes in separation of Church and State?

Discussion among bloggers here....

Comments

[jh]

THere are so many wrong things with this post it hard to know where to start.

First do you know the context of thhis remarks? It involved the human right amendment which is a part of the platform

Second , do you really think that Huckabee , who is a serious man , is plotting to get Baptist Theology into the US const which means he would have to have 2/3rds of the states to approve it.

Third, How can a man that is against prayer in public schools because he thinks the State should have no role be accused of being a theocrat?

Mike Huckabee was talking Evangelical talk to these people. Words they understand. If he was in front of a Catholic Audience he would talk using words like "culture of Life" and Natural Law.

Finally. Does any of this rethoric against Huckabee remind people what we Catholics went through. THe whole Catholics want to take over American and be ruled by the Pope. As a Former Evangelical the stuff I am seeing on the web tonight as to this issue just saddens me that they thing a considerable amount of their fellow Countrymen are kooks

[Damozel]

I'm sorry you object, but I believe I made the context clear in the quoted material. And I don't care who he was talking to. He said what he said. It's a dangerous precept for him to be putting out there, and one to which I have extremely strong objections. I don't want to see the moral views of one group of Christians---with whom I have strong and equally biblically-based differences of opinions---written into law. And that goes for any amendment addressing gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research, etc. etc. These are issues on which individuals, and not the state, should have the final say---in my opinion, of course. I imagine yours is different. And that's the beauty of a democracy.