Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told an Iowa talk radio show host on Saturday that young Christians should wait until President Obama left office before considering military service. He said there is a culture of persecution in the military under Obama, making it a “hostile work environment.”
Huckabee was responding to a story in the Washington Times about recent high-profile cases of discrimination against Christians in the military. Michael Berry of the Liberty Institute, a Florida-based public interest law firm representing many of these cases, said Christian parents may discourage their children from serving.
Berry’s firm represents a Christian pastor who has ministered to sailors and Marines for almost 20 years, whom the Navy is about to discharge because he counseled sailors on human sexuality that offended a homosexual officer.
Huckabee called it “one of the great tragedies of our time”:
“This administration has had an open hostility toward the Christian faith. And I know that sounds like a bold statement, Jan, but when you have a president whose administration orders its chaplains to put its Bibles away, not to pray in Jesus’ name, not to counsel people on the issues of sexual morality; when you have this attitude that is more about promoting gay marriage and gay rights in the military than it is about being able to protect religious liberty for those people of faith, it’s going to be hard to find people that are truly devoted people of faith and Christian believers and Orthodox Jews and others. Why would they want to be in a military that would be openly hostile and not just simply bring some scorn to their faith, but would punish them for it?”
Huckabee, who is expected to announce for the presidency soon, said he would advise young men and women to “wait a few years until we have a new commander-in-chief.”