AP Photo Huckabee: Obama made pope's visit a 'cattle call for gay and pro-abortion activists'

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says President Obama’s event at the White House to welcome Pope Francis Wednesday is about as classy as “hosting an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with an open bar.”

In an op-ed for the Daily Caller, the former Arkansas governor railed against the president for showing “total disrespect to millions of Americans by transforming Pope Francis’ White House visit into a politicized cattle call for gay and pro-abortion activists.”


The White House event has irked many conservatives for its decidedly non-traditional Catholic guest list. According to the Washington Post, "the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, a leader for transgender rights, and a gay Catholic blogger" will be on hand to greet Francis on the South Lawn.

“It’s all petty, partisan politics. Exploiting the Pope for cheap political points at the expense of millions of Americans and Catholics around the world is a shameless new low for this Administration,” Huckabee wrote. “This classless stunt is disrespectful and disgraceful.”

During a press briefing Monday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that while he couldn’t speak to every conversation between the Vatican and White House on planning the event, Vatican officials seem happy with the way the event is shaping up. "They would expect that there would be a diverse audience of Americans in place to welcome the Pope to the United States," he said.

“I will say there was no theological test that was administered prior to giving out tickets to stand on the South Lawn Wednesday morning,” Earnest said. “There’s plenty of opportunity for others to inject politics into this situation. It certainly is a protected constitutional right of theirs to do that. But that's not what the president is interested in.”