Mike Huckabee delivered a politically charged speech at the annual Southern Baptist Convention meeting on Monday, telling attendees that “holy matrimony” will be “twisted into perversion” and “formed into an unholy pretzel” as a result of same-sex marriage. Huckabee went on to criticize the armed forces and the Boy Scouts for becoming “test labs for social experiments” and Jason Collins, whom he mockingly called “a hero for announcing his sexual proclivities.”
Baptist Press, the media arm of the SBC, further reports that Huckabee urged pastors to speak out against the “ungodly and unholy” culture and put the Republican Party on notice in case they “ease off” on “issues like the sanctity of life and the holiness of marriage.” The future of abortion rights, Huckabee said, would determine “whether or not our civilization will survive as a nation” and if “our nation will stand or fall.”
“Jesus is talking about good food, biblical food,” Huckabee noted, lamenting that “we are living in a time of biblical ignorance.”
“People who attend church, especially young people, have an extraordinary lack of biblical depth,” he said. “According to recent surveys, the kids who grow up in our evangelical churches do not really know the biblical definition of marriage, and that really does concern me.”
“We need to be clear that, when holy matrimony is formed into an unholy pretzel, twisted into perversion — and when the military and the Boy Scouts become test labs for social experiments — we need to be very clear that, male and female, [God] created them,” Huckabee said.
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Citing veteran NBA center Jason Collins, who revealed his homosexuality on a sports website, Huckabee said the national media called Collins “a hero for announcing his sexual proclivities.”
Huckabee asked, where are the “accolades for Tim Tebow who announced that he follows Jesus? He was told to shut up.”
“It should concern us that we’re living in a culture where a person announces a sexual preference and it’s heroic” and another “announces he loves Jesus Christ, and he’s told … to keep that to yourself.”
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Clarifying that the hope of America is not in the next election, Huckabee said, “I would never suggest, ever, that you would turn your pulpit into some political podium. But I would urge that the pulpit would be a powerful, prophetic and purposeful punch in the gut to a culture that is ungodly and unholy.”
Huckabee then lamented abortion, where “every year more than a million babies lose their lives in what ought to be the safest place on earth in their mother’s own womb. How can we be silent?”
Abortion is not a political issue, but is one of “whether or not our civilization will survive as a nation that honors the God who created that precious life” or whether that life is “expendable, disposable.”
“This is an issue upon which our nation will stand or fall,” he said, “and the pulpits of America must not be silent.” Christians must have “broken hearts not just for the babies, but for the mothers who are often exploited and twisted and turned and forced and cajoled into having the abortion that deep down in their maternal souls they know they don’t want to have.”
Regarding evangelicals’ stance on social and moral issues, Huckabee said some in the Republican Party are saying “that maybe we need to dial it back a little bit when it comes to issues like the sanctity of life and the holiness of marriage, and maybe just ease off.”
The crowd erupted into sustained applause when Huckabee said, “Well, I’ve got a news flash for the GOP: I plan to take my last ride in life on a white horse, not on an elephant and not on a donkey. And I will stick with the Word of God. And if the party, any party, goes a different way, I stick with Jesus. I believe He is forever.”
