In response to the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage yesterday, Mike Huckabee tweeted a number of things, including this:
My thoughts on the SCOTUS ruling that determined that same sex marriage is okay: "Jesus wept."
If you're not familiar with this shortest English line of the New Testament, it comes from The Gospel of John, chapter 11, verse 35. Lazarus has died, and his sister Mary is reproaching Jesus for not having been there because he might have saved his friend from death. She's weeping, everyone else gathered around her is weeping, and as The King James version has it: "Jesus groaned in the spirit, and was troubled."
When asked to see where Lazarus has been laid out (in a cave), he weeps, too. It's a very powerful scene, given wonderful life by Bernado Bertolucci in his celebrated Jesus of Nazareth mini-series.
Now, can the former governor seriously compare anything in this highly dramatic and emotional scene of public mourning over the death of a beloved individual to the liberation of a whole class of people? Gays and lesbians who only want to share their love, devotion and commitment with each other? And compare the scene to the joyous normalization of the family life of hundreds of thousands of children living with same-sex parents, children who like their parents will no longer be second class citizens in the eyes of the law?
Isn't Mike Huckabee, someone who considers himself a man of faith, taking his Lord's name in vain?
Lev Raphael is the author of 25 books in many genres including the memoir/travelogue My Germany.