In an ABC interview, the former Arkansas governor worried that the Court’s "judicial tyranny" has fundamentally "changed the process of how we govern" and made "people of conscience" and "people of faith" vulnerable to discrimination. Quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. and Saint Augustine, Huckabee reminded his audience that "an unjust law is no law at all." Huckabee was especially concerned about the future of America and the unprecedented power of 5 "non-elected" Supreme Court "lawyers" to overrule 30 states’ bans on same-sex marriages.
In this climate, Huckabee believes, civil disobedience by Christian people is inevitable. Pastors, school administrators, and business owners whose constitutional rights are being violated by gay marriage will have to act in accordance with their conscience, not the law of the land.
Although those celebrating the Supreme Court decision will likely dismiss Huckabee’s remarks as paranoia or good old-fashioned bigoted panic, the Republican presidential candidate is right to be afraid. Same-sex marriage will, indeed, change America as a nation. And it will most definitely remain a contentious issue for conscientious objectors. Historical precedents abound. Marriage has changed many times. And it has changed American Christians and non-Christians alike in fundamental ways.
Until 1839, for example, a married woman could not own property, enter into contracts, or earn a salary while also being vulnerable to any penalties that came from her husband’s debts. A separation or the husband’s death could leave her penniless and defenseless against creditors. When the Married Women’s Property Acts were first introduced, (white) women slowly began to gain the rights to property, wages, and individualized debts, even as the opponents of this particular piece of legislation worried that women would stop taking their marital obligations seriously given such unprecedented financial freedom.
Likewise, as I’m sure Governor Huckabee knows, before the Civil War, enslaved people of African ancestry were not legally allowed to marry. Slaves, of course, created monogamous unions anyway, but even those arrangements required the permission of their white slave owners. And even then, these marriages were being systematically violated by rape and other forms of violence that tends to accompany the practice of owning other people as property.
It wasn’t until 1967, that marriage between members of different races became legal. In Loving v. Virginia, a century after Reconstruction came and went, the Supreme Court finally ruled that laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional. This, too, was a decision that changed the "traditional" definition of marriage forever. And I think it’s safe to say we are better off for it.
Whatever its merits, for most of American history, marriage has been an institution that systematically marginalized people based on gender, race, and class. If that is the kind of marriage that Huckabee wants to protect, then by all means, let him continue to deliver jeremiads to his concerned and defeated audiences. And if it’s not that "traditional" definition of marriage that he is, in fact, defending, then Huckabee must admit to being uncomfortable with a whole different kind of problem: a fellow citizen, but one who happens to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or intersex, having the same rights, privileges, and tax breaks as the good upstanding Christian that Huckabee is.
The truth is: Huckabee’s eulogy for the radical change in how—or whether—the state can legislate marriage is late by at least 136 years. Already in 1879, in response to the possibility of the introduction of a national marriage law, the Detroit Free Press editorialized, "What earthly business the United States government has with the question of marriage in the States, it is difficult to conceive." Huckabee is not the first—nor will he be the last—to express outrage at the idea that a Supreme Court can overrule state laws. Yet generally, when the Supreme Court has decided to go against antiquated state prohibitions on individual and communal autonomy, it has, for the most part, gotten these decisions right.
As to the question of whether gay marriage violates the rights of conservative Christian ministers, businessmen, and school administrators, I suppose the answer might be just what Huckabee wants us all to admit: the world is changing, and change—like growth—is always a little uncomfortable and slightly painful.
Yes, some businesses will suffer. But, as we know from other Supreme Court decisions, corporations, like people, are resilient. They, too, will adapt to the changing demands of the market. In terms of churches and school administrators, they have survived "worse"—desegregation, for instance, or ordination of people of different races, or constant battles over Bible readings and school prayer. They, too, are resilient. We can only hope that their theologies have enough generosity in them to allow queer people to have their wedding cake at the communal table that American democracy represents.