Mike Huckabee: Impeach Ark. Marriage Equality Judge

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is so unhappy with the arrival of marriage equality in his home state that he's on a crusade to have the judge who issued the pro-equality ruling impeached.

"Judge Chris Piazza, a circuit court judge in my home state of Arkansas, decided that he is singularly more powerful than the 135 elected legislators of the state, the elected Governor, and 75% of the voters of the state," Huckabee writes on the website for his political action committee, Huck PAC. "Apparently he mistook his black robe for a cape and declared himself to be 'SUPER LAWMAKER!'"

Piazza last Friday struck down both the Arkansas statute and state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. In doing so, he seemed to anticipate such backlash, writing in his ruling, "The court is not unmindful of the criticism that judges should not be super legislators." But since the Arkansas laws result in "the fundamental right to marry being denied to an unpopular minority," he ruled that they violate both the U.S. and state constitutions. State officials plan to appeal the decision, and there is a possibility that the ruling will be put on hold, but in the meantime same-sex couples have begun marrying in several counties in Arkansas.

Huckabee points to the legislative and popular support for the anti-marriage equality measures, noting that three quarters of the electorate voted for the constitutional amendment in 2004, affirming, as he puts it, that "natural marriage between a man and a woman is the law." He contends that Piazza has elevated the judiciary above the legislative and executive branches of government.

"By virtually ordering same sex marriage to begin immediately, which in fact happened in at least one Arkansas county on the morning after Judge Piazza's Friday night massacre of the law and the will of the people, he positioned himself as if he were all 3 branches of government and declared the voters immaterial," writes Huckabee, a onetime Republican presidential hopeful who is now a Fox News host. "The Governor should call a special session of the legislature and impeach the judge and affirm the people's will. If the people wish to allow same sex marriage, they can put that matter on the ballot and vote for it. Or the legislature can put that matter on the ballot and ask the people to change the Constitution to allow it. But they should not stand by and allow one man to think his robe has more power than it does."