Mike Huckabee Says Marriage Equality Is Like Swearing and Drinking: His Friends Do It, but He Doesn’t Condone It

Potential presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has come up with a new way to describe his opposition to same-sex marriage: like swearing or drinking, it’s something his “friends” may partake in, but not something he’ll ever condone.

He told CNN:

“People can be my friends who have lifestyles that are not necessarily my lifestyle. I don’t shut people out of my circle or out of my life because they have a different point of view,” Huckabee told CNN’s Dana Bash, while deflecting a question about whether he believes being gay is a choice.

“I don’t drink alcohol, but gosh — a lot of my friends, maybe most of them, do. You know, I don’t use profanity, but believe me, I’ve got a lot of friends who do. Some people really like classical music and ballet and opera — it’s not my cup of tea,” Huckabee said.

Can we get a fact-check on Mike Huckabee having gay friends? Twitter responded perfectly to this analysis:

Huckabee added:

“This is not just a political issue,” Huckabee said “It is a biblical issue. And as a biblical issue — unless I get a new version of the scriptures, it’s really not my place to say, ‘OK, I’m just going to evolve.'”

Asking a Christian to accept same-sex marriage, Huckabee said, is “like asking someone who’s Jewish to start serving bacon-wrapped shrimp in their deli.”

“We don’t want to do that — I mean, we’re not going to do that,” he said. “Or like asking a Muslim to serve up something that is offensive to him, or to have dogs in his backyard. We’re so sensitive to make sure we don’t offend certain religions, but then we act like Christians can’t have the convictions that they’ve had for 2,000 years.”

Fine. Everyone can believe what they want to believe. But those Jewish people you’re talking about don’t create laws that ban other people from serving bacon-wrapped shrimp in their delis. Your bigotry can govern how you live your life, but it won’t govern my rights.