Cruz, Huckabee compete for evangelical votes

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has raised more money than he did at the same point for the 2008 election, but he still lags behind other Republican hopefuls in the race for the presidency.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has raised more money than he did at the same point for the 2008 election, but he still lags behind other Republican hopefuls in the race for the presidency.

MILNER, Ga. — Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee went head-to-head for evangelical votes this weekend, telling a megachurch congregation in Georgia that God favors the United States but warning that the nation is on a perilous spiritual path because of actions like the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

Huckabee, who enjoyed evangelical support on his way to winning eight states in his 2008 White House bid, called the ruling "radical" and "illegal."

"I want to serve notice that the Supreme Court is just the supreme of the court system that is one of the three equal branches of government," Huckabee told hundreds of members of Rock Springs Church in a rural area outside metro Atlanta. "It is not the supreme branch, and it most certainly is not the supreme being."

Cruz, the Texas senator, said a five-justice majority "ignored the text of the Constitution" and said the cascade of judicial and public support for same-sex marriage threatens religious liberty in America. He said he hopes the ruling "serves as a spark, to start a fire that becomes a raging inferno as the body of Christ stands up to defend the values that have built America."

Their appearance on Sunday at the megachurch about 50 miles south of downtown Atlanta is part of the early scramble for the conservative evangelicals who remain an important bloc of the GOP presidential electorate. Christian conservatives have long held considerable influence in Iowa, which hosts the first caucus of the primary season, and in South Carolina, home of the South's first primary a few weeks later.

Now, Georgia and several other Southern states get more frequent visits from presidential hopefuls ahead of the planned "SEC primary," named for the Southeastern Conference of college athletics. The March 1, 2016, vote falls after the traditional first four states and ahead of the usual "Super Tuesday" states.

Rev. Benny Tate, pastor of the 6,000-member Rock Springs congregation, joked about the attention. "Our zip code is E-I-E-I-O," he said, "and we've got two presidential candidates. How about that?" But the minister is also a serious player in Republican politics, with many Georgia politicians, and now national ones, courting his public approval, if not his explicit endorsement.

Tate told the assembly that Huckabee, as Arkansas governor, signed "a ban on partial-birth abortion," referring to the termination of late-term pregnancies. He hailed Cruz for "standing against the Democratic Party ... and even against the Republican Party."

Despite the emphasis on faith, Huckabee's loudest applause came when he lauded his "fair tax" proposal that he said "would allow us to, once and for all, abolish the IRS." Cruz, meanwhile, drew some of his most enthusiastic reactions when he declared, "I'm convinced 2016 will be a referendum on repealing Obamacare," President Barack Obama's signature health care law.

A few minutes earlier, the assembly passed offering plates for the church's clinics, which Tate said provide "free health care" to residents in dozens of surrounding counties.

Reader poll

Which GOP presidential candidate would you most likely choose in 2016?

  • Jeb Bush 14%
  • Scott Walker 8%
  • Marco Rubio 7%
  • Mike Huckabee 14%
  • Rand Paul 4%
  • Ben Carson 6%
  • Ted Cruz 5%
  • Donald Trump 26%
  • Rick Perry 2%
  • Other (please comment) 13%

605 total votes.

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