By Bob Allen
Potential 2016 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee told about 400 people in a town hall meeting at First Baptist Church of Charlotte, N.C., that while some GOP presidential candidates are shying away from hot-button social issues in an attempt to woo new voters, he intends to keep talking about moral issues.
According to the Charlotte Observer, the former Fox News host questioned the constitutionality of federal judges throwing out state laws banning gay marriages, saying the country has wrongly “surrendered to the doctrine of judicial supremacy.”
While some GOP presidential candidates plan to let the issue die if the U.S. Supreme Court rules this year that all states must allow same-sex marriages, Huckabee reminded the crowd that some people thought abortion was no longer an issue after the Supreme Court ruling in Roe. v. Wade in 1973.
“Did that settle it?” he asked. “Forty-two years later, we are still debating.”
The event was part of a bus tour hitting 43 cities in two weeks promoting Huckabee’s latest book, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy.
Huckabee, a one-time pastor who sat out the 2012 campaign after his stunning win of the Iowa caucuses in 2008, recently left his Fox News program to explore another run for the White House, a decision he expects to announce in late spring.
In his farewell broadcast, Huckabee said he thoroughly enjoyed his time at Fox News, but “I realize God hasn’t put me on earth just to have a good time or make a good living.”
“God has put me on earth to try to make a good life,” he said. “There’s been a great deal of speculation as to whether I would run for president, and if I were willing to absolutely rule that out, I could keep doing this show. But I can’t make such a declaration.”
Huckabee was introduced at the meeting, organized by the Civitas Institute, by Mark Harris, pastor of First Baptist Church and former Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. Huckabee endorsed Harris, former president of the North Carolina Baptist Convention, early in 2014.
Harris finished third among eight candidates in the GOP primary after questions arose about whether he violated campaign laws by accepting a church “love offering” while running for office.
Huckabee’s planned visit to First Baptist, Charlotte, was first announced in March last year. An update in July reported that “Dr. Mark Harris has kindly opened the sanctuary to us for this event,” allowing more people to register.
Future stops on Huckabee’s book tour include First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Ga., and the Church at Rock Creek in Little Rock, Ark. Signings are also scheduled at LifeWay Christian Stores in Shreveport, La., and Tyler, Texas.
Huckabee, 59, a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark., attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for one year before being hired as director of communications for evangelist James Robison.
He returned to Arkansas in 1980 to become pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in Pine Bluff, Ark. He moved on to serve at Beech Street Baptist Church in Texarkana 1986 to 1992, where his sermons were televised.
In 1989 he was elected president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, supported by moderates who found him preferable to the conservative-backed candidate, current Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd.
Huckabee left the ministry to run for the U.S. Senate in 1992, losing to popular Democratic incumbent Dale Bumpers. That same election sent Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton to the White House, meaning the lieutenant governor moved up to the governor’s office.
A year later Huckabee won a special election for lieutenant governor. He was re-elected in 1994, and was in the process of running for the Senate again when Gov. Jim Guy Tucker resigned after being convicted of felony charges in the Whitewater investigation. Huckabee took over as governor in July 1996 and won nearly 60 percent of the vote in 1998. He won narrowly in 2002 and was being mentioned as a possible contender for the 2008 Republican nomination for president beginning in 2004.
Huckabee announced his intention to run for president in January 2007, winning several primary victories before bowing out of the race to U.S. Sen. John McCain, who by then had scored enough delegates to win the nomination.
Fox News hired him as a political commentator in 2008 and later gave him his own show, Huckabee, which aired on weekends from Sept. 27, 2008, until Jan. 3, 2015.