JOHNSTON, Iowa (ABP) — The newest front-runner in the Republican presidential campaign responded to newfound scrutiny Dec. 12, reportedly apologizing for what critics called an anti-Mormon crack.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, apologized to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney after a Republican debate near Des Moines, Iowa. Huckabee said he told Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that he did not mean to attack Mormonism when he commented about the faith in a recent issue of New York Times Magazine.
“I said I would never try, ever, to try to somehow pick out some point of your faith and make it, you know, an issue, and I wouldn't,” Huckabee said on a CNN broadcast following the exchange. “I said, 'I don't think your being a Mormon ought to make you more or less qualified for being a president.' That has been my position.”
According to Huckabee, Romney accepted the apology “graciously.”
The controversy overshadowed the final GOP debate prior to the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, which constitute the first official balloting in the 2008 presidential campaign.
Huckabee's comments came in a cover story for the Dec. 16 issue of the magazine. In it, Huckabee responded to a question about whether Mormonism is a cult or a religion by saying, “I think it's a religion. I really don't know much about it.”
Then, “in an innocent voice,” according to reporter Zev Chafets, Huckabee asked his own question: “Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”
Spokespeople for Romney and the LDS Church quickly refuted the statement after it was publicized Dec. 11. According to Mormon officials, the group's theology teaches that Jesus was the only human-born child of God but that Satan was a spiritual child of God who rebelled.
On the Dec. 12 edition of NBC's “Today Show,” Romney said he welcomed debate with Huckabee on policy differences but added that “attacking someone's religion is really going too far.”
“It's just not the American way, and I think people will reject that,” Romney said.
Prior to the Dec. 12 apology, Huckabee's campaign released a statement saying “the full context of the exchange” between reporter Chafets and the candidate “makes it clear that Gov. Huckabee was illustrating his unwillingness to answer questions about Mormonism and to avoid addressing theological questions during this campaign.”
The statement said Huckabee “wants to assure persons of all faith traditions of his firm commitment to religious tolerance and freedom of worship.”
The controversy follows other flare-ups over the candidate's past statements while governor in Arkansas. Huckabee has defended prior comments about AIDS, relations with Cuba and a call to “take America back for Christ.”
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Read more:
Huckabee's surge in polls brings new media attention, scrutiny (12/12)
Did Romney speech do enough to keep evangelicals from bolting to Huckabee? (12/11)