Republican presidential candidate Mike
Huckabee warned earlier this month that Christians opposed to
marriage equality must be “willing to suffer” as a result of
defying the Supreme Court's recent ruling striking down gay marriage
bans in all 50 states.
At the Western Conservative Summit held
last month on the day that the high court released its ruling,
Colorado State Representative Gordon Klingenschmitt, a Republican who
runs a Christian conservative YouTube ministry in his spare time,
asked Huckabee about what opponents should expect as they carry out
civil disobedience in response to the decision.
“I think in all of our lives there
comes moments where we have to decide, do we obey God or do we obey a
decision that we believe is unlawful,” Huckabee
answered. “Martin Luther King perhaps taught us best in our
own lifetime. And there were laws he disobeyed because he believed
that they were unjust laws.”
“He was willing to suffer for his
decisions. And I think that is what we have to accept. Is that, we
would be wiling to follow our conscience.”
Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist
minister and ardent opponent of LGBT rights, has repeatedly called on
Christians to disobey the ruling.