Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee this past weekend told a crowd of Iowa Republicans the GOP must hold firm with its pro-life message.
“It’s important for people to realize that the Republican Party values the dignity and worth of every human being,” Huckabee said during an interview with WHO Television. “Every life has value.”
Huckabee was the keynote speaker at a first-ever “Celebration of Life” event organized by the Republican Party of Iowa.
“The message of pro-life is not just about abortion,” Huckabee said. “It’s about celebrating every life as having great value, being a gift from God with a special purpose.”
Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, was the winner of the 2008 Iowa Republican Party Caucuses. A spokesman for the Iowa Democratic Party said it is “truly disturbing” that the Republican Party continues to try to “erode access to safe and legal abortion” 40 years after the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade decision.
Huckabee warned that moderating the Republican Party’s message on social issues is going to send conservatives like him heading out of the party’s coalition, especially when it comes to changing the party’s stand against same-sex marriage.
“If you’re a Bible-based Christian, you don’t really have a choice. I don’t get to rewrite the Bible to suit culture. I think culture has to adjust itself to an eternal standard,” Huckabee said. “I’ve got no beef with somebody who wants to live the way they want to live, but I don’t want to change the definition of marriage because it’s not mine to change.”
The 2012 Iowa Republican Party platform and the GOP’s national platform adopted last summer both call for constitutional amendments at the state and federal level to ban same-sex marriage. The national Republican Party platform also declares that the “unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.” The Iowa Republican Party’s platform calls for state laws “protecting all life from the moment of conception to non-intervened natural death.”