Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is genuinely a terrible person, frequently using his religion to bully and shame. He regularly espouses racist views, hateful language toward LGBTQ citizens and fought tooth and nail against equal marriage, warmly embracing and championing the bigoted Kentucky clerk who refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples. In a surprise announcement, the Country Music Association Foundation named him as the newest member of their board, but that didn’t last long. The backlash was swift and furious. Here’s a taste, from the Tennessean:
Jason Owen, co-president of Monument Records and owner at Sandbox Entertainment, called the appointment a "grossly offensive decision" in an email to the association's CEO Sarah Trahern and CMA Foundation executive Tiffany Kerns.
Owen wrote that due to Huckabee’s election to the CMA Foundation’s board, neither his companies nor anyone they represent would continue to support the foundation.
Owen and his husband, Sam, are fathers to a young son and are expecting twins. Owen said that Huckabee’s stance on the LGBT community “made it clear my family is not welcome in his America.”
Manager Whitney Pastorek, who represents Sugarland’s Kristian Bush, also complained:
“What a terrible disappointment to see (the CMA Foundation’s) mission clouded by the decision to align with someone who so frequently engages in the language of racism, sexism, and bigotry,” Pastorek wrote. “While Gov. Huckabee's tenure in Arkansas may have resulted in valuable education reform over a decade ago, I find his choice to spend the past ten years profiting off messages of exclusion and hatred (not to mention the gun lobby) to be disqualifying.”
Only one day later, Huckabee penned a resignation letter painting himself as the victim. The man who is regularly booked on Fox News precisely because he’s a bully is now a poor little victim.
It appears that I will make history as having the shortest tenure in the history of the CMA Foundation Board. I genuinely regret that some in the industry were so outraged by my appointment that they bullied the CMA and the Foundation with economic threats and vowed to withhold support for the programs for students if I remained. I had NO idea I was that influential! I’m somewhat flattered to be of such consequence when all I thought I was doing was voluntarily serving on a non-profit board without pay in order to continue my decades of advocacy for the arts and especially music.
The message here is “Hate Wins.” Bullies succeeded in making it untenable to have “someone like me” involved. I would imagine however that many of the people who buy tickets and music are not that “unlike me.”
During his days as governor, he was embroiled in a scandal when his son was accused of torturing and hanging a stray dog on a Boy Scout camping trip and he reportedly tried to pressure the director of the Arkansas State Police to exonerate his son. When the director refused, Huckabee fired him seven months later. There was also his stint as a snake oil salesman:
Huckabee, who shed about 100 pounds after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, filmed TV and radio infomercials advertising a program to "reverse" diabetes in February and March. Huckabee also lent his email list to carry ads about a looming food shortage and a cancer cure found in the Bible.
The diabetes “cure” turned out to be a booklet on exercise and snake oil supplements:
However, the video discusses at length the "Double C Diabetes Remedy" of cinnamon and chromium picolinate, which is described as a "weird, spice, kitchen cabinet cure" that "will allow you to live life just like when you didn’t have diabetes at all." Lon the narrator calls this precise combination of cinnamon and chromium picolinate a "cornerstone" of the system.
Finally, the evangelical Huckabee is a huge fan of Donald Trump, regularly defending him on Fox News and elsewhere. Frankly, the pair of con men are a match made in heaven.