After being forced off the Country Music Association Foundation for his anti-LGBT views, Mike Huckabee predictably ran to Fox News to complain about other people’s intolerance.
In case you missed Huckabee’s one-day CMA Foundation appointment, Variety explains what happened:
The CMA had obviously seen Huckabee’s appointment as apolitical, since the former Arkansas governor had long been a champion of putting the arts in schools, which is the CMA Foundation’s mission. But hardly everyone thought it was possible to view Huckabee’s philanthropic efforts as separate from his hardline politics. “Basically, every gay man in town is furious,” said one artist manager, before the resignation was announced — and the chatter around Nashville made it clear that many of the straight men and women heading the town’s biggest label groups and management firms were every bit as angry.
It’s not as though Huckabee just discreetly opposes gay marriage. He flaunts his anti-LGBT positions. According to the Human Rights Campaign, he has called for the impeachment of an Arkansas judge who struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban. He also supported, on television, Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis when she flouted the law and refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses and he has publicly compared same-sex marriage to incest.
But, predictably, Fox News was quick to make Huckabee a conservative martyr. “Conservatives need not apply,” blared the FoxNews.com headline on Saturday for an article that read, “Country music, once an inclusive industry that welcomed conservatives and people of faith, has now become an exclusive, politically correct group, indistinguishable from the rest of the entertainment industry.”
So, naturally, Huckabee ran to Fox & Friends this morning for some conservative-victim validation.
Raw Story caught Huckabee’s whine:
“It’s not enough to say I disagree and wish this person would change his mind.,” he said. “Today it’s let’s put him out of business, let’s close his store. Let’s not allow him to continue to operate a business, let’s damage him professionally, let’s hurt his brand. I mean, it’s all about destroying the other side, rather than disagreeing with the other side. That’s not the kind of America where the First Amendment reigns and people are free to speak, to associate. Today it’s let’s destroy everyone who doesn’t agree with me.”
To his credit, Huckabee urged viewers to continue supporting the CMA. “If they’re going to put musical instruments in the hands of kids, then I’m for them,” Huckabee said.
But Ainsley Earhardt couldn’t resist making a dig. “If it is all about that, then why didn’t they keep you on the board?” she groused.
But the topic was finished and the show moved on to “Hollywood hypocrisy.”
Speaking of hypocrisy, if Huckabee truly believes in not professionally damaging or shutting down those he disagrees with, then maybe he should apologize for saying that Colin Kaepernick and like-minded liberals should be sent out of the country. While he’s at it, Huckabee might want to take back excusing Donald Trump’s bogus birtherism that was designed to run Barack Obama out of the White House. And, I’m sorry, Huck, but “joking” that Maxine Waters was sent to North Korea so that Kim Jong-un would commit suicide is not exactly respectful of someone with a differing opinion.
So let respect for others begin in the Huckabee home. But I’m not holding my breath.
Watch the conservative victimhood below, from the March 5, 2018 Fox & Friends.