Former Arkansas Governor and possible
presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Thursday said that the Left
had manufactured controversies surrounding so-called religious
freedom bills in Arkansas and Indiana.
Governors in both states on Thursday
signed revised versions of the bills after business leaders and gay
rights advocates voiced opposition to the measures. Critics said
that the law's broad language might be used by businesses to refuse
service to gay men and lesbians.
(Related: Indiana,
Arkansas governors sign revised “religious freedom” bills.)
Huckabee called the controversy a
“phony crisis” during an appearance on FRC's Washington Week
radio program.
“It's been manufactured by the Left,
just as was the war on women,” Huckabee
said. “There was no war on women. The Left has gotten very
good on creating a crisis, something to divide the country, something
to create this sense in which 'we've got to go after these
conservatives because they are trying to trample over our rights.'”
“Where will it stop?” FRC President
Tony Perkins asked.
“It won't stop until there are no
more churches,” Huckabee answered, “until there are no more
people who are spreading the Gospel. And I'm talking now about the
unabridged, unapologetic Gospel that is really God's truth.”
Elsewhere on the program, Huckabee had
to walk back a comment that Christian conservatives would never
boycott a business after Perkins stated that he was planning to
boycott Walmart over its opposition to Arkansas' bill.
(Related: Walmart
asks Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson to veto anti-gay bill.)