Perkins: Media Attack on Huckabee a ‘Reverse Religious Test’
By Jim Brown, OneNewsNow.com
A prominent evangelical Christian leader says a “reverse religious test” is being applied to Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee because he believes his Christian faith should impact the way he lives. Tony Perkins says the attempt by elite secularists in the media to subject the surging GOP candidate to that test may not achieve its desired objective.
Mainstream news media outlets have been regurgitating comments Huckabee made as far back as 15 years ago regarding HIV/AIDS and homosexuality. Reporters are branding the ordained Southern Baptist minister’s belief that homosexuality is an “aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle” as “controversial,” and are pressuring the former Arkansas governor to retract a remark he made in 1992 about the need to “isolate the carriers” of AIDS. Media outlets also have been dredging up statements Huckabee made in the past stressing the need to “take this nation back for Christ.”
Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, DC, says Huckabee is being subjected to the same reverse religious litmus test that was applied during judicial confirmation hearings between 2003 and 2005.
“Senator Charles Schumer of New York said that he was opposed to some of these nominees of the president because of their ‘deeply held personal beliefs’ and those beliefs coming from their faith — in particular, regarding abortion and seeing it as wrong,” Perkins points out. “So we see a reverse religious test being applied [saying essentially] that anyone who has a vibrant Christian faith that impacts their life will have to choose between that faith and serving in public office — and that, simply, is wrong.”
Perkins says “elite secularists” are trying to single out Huckabee because of his evangelical Christian faith, and are attempting to “make him look scary” to the public because he, among other things, rejects evolution, believes in the Bible, and trusts in Jesus Christ. But such efforts, the evangelical leader suggests, may only serve to generate more support for Huckabee in the conservative Christian community.
“I think there’s a clear understanding and an attitude [about this] among Christians,” says the FRC president. “They’re simply tired of the elites who belittle their beliefs and attempt to rob them of every public reflection of their faith — and I think this could backfire.”
According to Perkins, many Bible-believing Christians may choose to look past some of their policy differences with Huckabee to “stand by and support a candidate who is being attacked because he believes, as they do, that their Christian faith should impact the way they live.” And if that happens, Perkins predicts that Huckabee’s “meteoric rise” in recent polls “could look miniscule compared to the tsunami of support” he will get from sympathetic Christians.
(Source: OneNewsNow.com)
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