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Last week it was announced that former Governor, musician, and all around nice guy, Mike Huckabee, had been appointed to the Country Music Association Foundation board.
The reason?
Huckabee has a history of promoting the arts in public schools---including music, and that's what the CMA Foundation does.
In less than 24 hours Mike Huckabee was forced to resign.
The reason?
Hollywood's Variety Magazine summed it up in their story with this sub-headline: "Basically every gay man in town is furious."
They're right. Every homosexual in town was angry. Particularly those who manage the "big" Nashville country music artists. The ones many of you like and listen to.
Variety says "the chatter around Nashville made it clear that many straight men and women heading the town's biggest label groups and management firms were every bit as angry."
However, most of them spoke anonymously.
Jason Owen, one of the most influential music artist managers in Nashville, wrote a letter to the CMA within hours of Huckabee's appointment demanding Huckabee's removal, or else.
Owens, a "married" homosexual, who, along with his "husband/wife," have a son.
In his letter, he told CMA, "This man has made it clear that my family is not welcome in his America, while the CMA has opened their arms to me and made me feel welcome and relevant." He said, "Huckabee speaks of the sort of things that would suggest my family is morally beneath his,"and "Not to mention how harmful and damaging his deep involvement with the NRA is. What a shameful choice."
Yes, how shameful.
There's much more. You can read it for yourself.
This, my friends, is the face of the people who champion "tolerance." And exclusivity.
And it's a moment to remember the next time your favorite country artist sings a song about Jesus and asks millions of evangelicals to buy it.
The Advocate, the country's biggest homosexual newspaper, led with this headline: "The New Nashville Took A Stand Against Mike Huckabee."
They're right. Nashville did take a stand against Huckabee, and here's what they stood against.
Let's look at the face of true tolerance. And class.
The following day, Mike Huckabee wrote a letter to the Tennessean newspaper. It began with this:
To the CMA Foundation Board
From Mike Huckabee
March 1, 2018
Dear Board Members:
I hereby tender my resignation effective immediately. I hope this will end the unnecessary distraction and deterrent to the core mission of the Foundation which is to help kids acquire musical instruments and have an opportunity to participate in music programs as students.
Since I will not be able to continue in what I had hoped to be useful service in this endeavor, I wanted to at least put some things on the record. I have no expectation that it will change the irrational vitriol directed toward you or me for my religious or political views that necessitated my abrupt departure, but I want you to know what you would never know by reading intolerant and vicious statements on the internet about who I am or what led me to want to be a part of your efforts to empower kids with the gift of music. So please bear with me.
He then proceeded to give an overview of how music gave him the opportunity to, "rise above my meager upbringing that consisted of scratching out a meager living and hoping to pay the rent in a house I would never own just as generations before me had done."
"What changed everything," Huckabee said, was "the gift of an electric guitar by my parents when I was 11..."
He wrote, "It took them [his parents] a year to pay for the $99 guitar they bought from the J.C. Penny catalog."
He said music gave him confidence, which enabled him to rise above the low expectations he had grown up with.
As Governor, Mike Huckabee worked tirelessly to give other children the same opportunity he had been given through music. This humble man digresses and gives an overview of what he has been able to do in helping children through music over the years. And it's well documented.
And Mike says this: "If the industry doesn't want people of faith or those who hold conservative and traditional political views to buy their tickets and music, they should be forthcoming and say it. Surely none of the artists or the business people of the industry want that."
He says, "All of us have deep passions about our beliefs. But I hate no one." And he says, "I hope that the music industry will become more tolerant and inclusive and recognize that a true love for kids having access to the arts is more important than a dislike for someone or a group of people because of who they are or what they believe."
"Kids wanting to learn music shouldn't be the victims of adults who demand that only certain people can be in the room or be heard," he said.
In conclusion, Mike Huckabee said, "I wish you nothing but good will and success at reaching students across America who need music as much as I did. At the end of the day, I'm not worth the fight, but the kids are. Never stop fighting for THEM!"
Nashville and its Country Music Association has been weighed in the balances and found wanting.
Biblical Christians have been given an eyewitness demonstration of what biblical Christianity looks like as it is lived out in today's hostile culture.
God bless you Mike.
Be Informed. Be Bold. Be Faithful. Be Prayerful.