Potential 2016 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s forthcoming book, "God, Guns, Grits and Gravy," is mostly filled with his common defenses of conservative ideals. But his comments on same-sex marriage may surprise even his evangelical supporters.
“The claim that same-sex marriage is destroying society is actually greatly overstated,” Huckabee writes. “Christians who themselves abandoned the primacy of lifelong marriage to follow the divorce and remarriage customs of a secular society have as much to answer for as those who militantly push to redefine marriage.”
He later adds, “Marriage as an institution is not so much threatened by same-sex couples as it is by heterosexuals’ increasing indifference to it.”
It is a different tone than many are used to hearing from the 2008 Iowa caucus winner who threatened to leave the Republican for softening its opposition to gay marriage.
Still most of the his writings are in strong defense of traditional marriage. Huckabee says President Barack Obama is being “dishonest” about his changing position on gay marriage and oddly explains how he first learned of homosexuality after hearing about a pedophile Boy Scout leader. (“To be clear, I am not equating all gay men with pedophiles,” he writes.)
The book, which comes out later this month, deals with many other issues than marriage. One chapter titled "Bend Over and Take It Like a Prisoner!" addresses the security procedures practiced at U.S. airports.
And U.S. News and World Report reported Huckabee even gets into pop culture, including Jay-Z and Beyonce. Huckabee writes:
Beyonce is incredibly talented – gifted, in fact. She has an exceptional set of pipes and can actually sing. She is a terrific dancer – without the explicit moves best left for the privacy of her bedroom. Jay-Z is a very shrewd businessman, but I wonder: Does it occur to him that he is arguably crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife as a sex object?"