The XX Factor

Huckabee Says Christians Will Go to Hell If They Vote Obama

Mike Huckabee, warrior.

Photo by MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/GettyImages

Mike Huckabee has a new ad out chastising Christians to set aside their concerns about jobs, the economy and taxes to focus on what really matters: the government’s power to interfere with the private lives of strangers. 

HUCKABEE: Many issues are at stake, but some issues are not negotiable: The right to life from conception to natural death. Marriage should be reinforced, not redefined. It is an egregious violation of our cherished principle of religious liberty for the government to force the Church to buy the kind of insurance that leads to the taking of innocent human life.

Your vote will affect the future and be recorded in eternity. Will you vote the values that will stand the test of fire? This is Mike Huckabee asking you to join me November 6th and vote based on values that will stand the test of fire.

For someone who claims to be afraid of hellfire, Huckabee certainly doesn’t hesitate to stomp all over the 9th Commandment! Thou shalt not bear false witness… unless thou is talking about the HHS contraception coverage mandate, which Huckabee says forces “the Church to buy the kind of insurance that leads to the taking of innocent human life.” Of course, churches are actually exempt from that regulation. And the hormonal birth control he’s likely referring to actually works by suppressing ovulation, but I guess not providing eggs for searching sperm has been upgraded to “murder” in anti-choice lingo.

Huckabee must have had an assistant write him a book report on What’s the Matter with Kansas, because this video couldn’t be more blunt in arguing that Christians should overlook their economic self-interest and instead use their vote to fight sexual liberation. Huckabee is right to be concerned. Obama got nearly twice as many votes from white evangelical Christians under 44 in 2008 than Kerry did in 2004, which helped push Obama over the top in many swing states. The consensus seems to be that these younger Christians have rejected the pressure to vote solely on the issue of other people’s sex lives, and instead consider economic and environmental issues to be of greater moral concern. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that Huckabee has resorted to the oldest trick in the book, threatening them with damnation.