Mike Huckabee Extends Olive Branch To Latter-Day Saints On KSL's Doug Wright Show, Now Says He "Loves Mormons"; But Many Mormons Are Still Skeptical

Former Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who was critical of Mormonism and Mitt Romney during the campaign, took a tentative step towards mending fences with the Latter-day Saint community on January 9th, 2008 when he appeared on the Doug Wright Show aired by KSL radio in Salt Lake City. Media story by the Deseret News.

During the 12-minute radio program, Huckabee says he loves Mormons and believes they make the most effective public servants in America. "Utah doesn't need to think there is a problem with me," said Huckabee.

Huckabee was strongly criticized in Utah and elsewhere for critical comments previously made about fellow former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is also LDS. In the process, he also criticized some of the church's religious beliefs and created the impression that he believed a Mormon shouldn't be President of the United States.

During the interview, set up with several major radio stations across the nation, Wright asked Huckabee, a born-again Christian and former governor of Arkansas, about his comments concerning Romney. Huckabee admitted that he saw a different Romney than the man he knew as a fellow GOP governor. He claimed that during the Presidential primary campaign Romney was not the Mitt he knew. He also claimed that the other Republican candidates also noted that Romney acted differently on the campaign trail than when he was governor or otherwise out of an intra-party race. But Huckabee conceded that perhaps Romney's attitude and atmosphere around him may have been caused by people who gave him very bad advice.

Huckabee still believes he never said anything unkind about Mormons. He reminded Doug Wright that when "11 words were completely misconstrued" when spoken about the LDS religion in a long New York Times profile of him, he immediately apologized publicly to Romney and church members in general. Romney accepted the apology. Furthermore, he said he advocates no religious test in running for office, and defends Mormons running for office. In particular, he singled out Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. as being of Presidential timber.

Huckabee also said that when he saw the backlash against the LDS Church following the bitter Proposition 8 race in California last November, he was one of the first to commend the church for standing up for its beliefs, although as recently as August 2008, he criticized Romney along with Arnold Schwarzenegger for allowing gay marriage to go forward in their respective states. Huckabee said he would have refused to implement it if he had been in their position.

Reaction: As of this post, 140 comments have been posted to the Deseret News story. Many are quite critical; even some Mormons want nothing to do with Huckabee. Most of the critics think Huckabee is merely being opportunistic, and hold him responsible for creating a religious divide within the Christian community which allowed proponents of gay marriage to make so much progress in misleading the American people.

But should we really turn our backs on Huckabee? The successful Proposition 8 campaign resulted in tentative ties being knit between the LDS and Evangelical communities. If we slam the door on Huckabee now, we risk rupturing those new ties. At the very least, we should take Huckabee at his word for now, and afford him the opportunity to demonstrate that his desire to reconciliate with Mormons is genuine. We call ourselves a church of Jesus Christ; isn't that what He would do?

Consequently, I appreciate Mike Huckabee's change of heart, and while I don't expect him to become a Mormon, it would be useful if, after prayerful consideration, he would decide that Mormonism is not a cult and that it is Christian, and give public statements affirming that opinion. He can still express doctrinal disagreements; just don't demonize the entire denomination.