Huckabee To States: Ignore Supreme Court If It Lets Gays Marry (Audio)

Mike Huckabee insists that the U.S. Supreme Court is not the final word when it comes to the law.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee spent some time talking with conservative radio host and law professor Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday, peddling his misguided opinion on exactly how the law works in the United States.

The 59-year old Republican is also peddling his latest book, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, and his been making the talk show rounds lately. On Monday he sat down with Jon Stewart to push his theory that there’s a “real clash of cultures” between people who live “in the bubbles of New York, Washington, and Hollywood, versus the people who live in the land of the bubbas.”

But Tuesday a more serious Huckabee told Hewitt he is “angry” about the way states and governors are just bowing down to the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of same-sex marriage.

“If the federal Supreme Court rules that same sex marriage is protected under the 14th Amendment, you still have to have Congress and the President act to agree with it, because one branch of government does not overrule the other two. This idea that a judge makes a ruling on Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning same sex marriage licenses are being given out, that’s utter nonsense, because there’s not been any agreement with the other two branches of government,” Huckabee said, clearly not understanding how the law actually works. 

“One thing I am angry about, though, Hugh,” Huckabee continued, “is this notion of judicial supremacy, where if the courts make a decision, I hear governors and even some aspirants to the presidency say well, that’s settled, and it’s the law of the land. No, it isn’t the law of the land. Constitutionally, the courts cannot make a law. They can interpret one. And then the legislature has to create enabling legislation, and the executive has to sign it, and has to enforce it.”

Hewitt, a law professor at the same university where NOM Chairman John Eastman teaches, later reminded Huckabee of the Supremacy Clause.

But the courts, however, can and do have the authority to bar lawmakers and executives, from the president to governors, on down, from enforcing laws, as they have done dozens of times in same-sex marriage cases. And in the absence of a ban, most conservatives would actually argue that something is legal. 

Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, also told Hewitt that when it comes to same-sex marriage, “there does come a point at which I think we have to take a stand. I may be lonely, I may be the only one, but I’m going to stand absolutely faithful to the issue of marriage not because it’s a politically expedient thing to do, because it isn’t. I’m going to do it because I believe it is the right position, it’s the Biblical position, it’s the historical position.”

That argument was also used to support slavery and bans on interracial marriage.

Listen:

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr
Hat tip: Washington Times