Fox News employee and Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee said Sunday that President Barack Obama’s decision not to defend key parts of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was actually alienating his African American base.

In a Wednesday statement, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote, “the President and I have concluded that classifications based on sexual orientation warrant heightened scrutiny and that, as applied to same-sex couples legally married under state law, Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional.”

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Fox News’ Chris Wallace talked with Huckabee about the decision Sunday.

“You say that that could destroy the president,” Wallace noted. “Isn’t that over the top?”

“No,” Huckabee replied. “He alieniated the African American community. Overwhelmingly, they support traditional marriages more than Hispanics and more than whites.”

“Within the white community it’s about 56 percent, 65 percent in the Hispanic, 75 in the African American community,” he explained.

“He said he believes that it’s unconstitutional,” Wallace pointed out.

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“He said that because some lower court decided a part of DOMA was unconstitutional, that he would not enforce it,” Huckabee countered. “By that logic, then he should not try to implement Obamacare because some lower courts already decided that it is unconstitutional. That’s hypocritical.”

“It’s hypocritical and it’s dishonest because when he ran for president, Chris, he said that he supported traditional marriage. He is on the record. Now, the question is, was he dishonest then, is he dishonest now or did he change his view? And if he did, when and why?”

In fact, White House press secretary Jay Carney explained Wednesday that Obama’s views on gay marriage were separate and distinct from this decision.

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“I don’t think that what he is doing is constitutional,” the Republican presidential candidate added. “If a president begins to decide which pieces of the law he will choose to support or endorse or enforce, based on a lower court decision, not because it is actually bubbled up to a final adjudication, that is an unusual precedent for a president to take.”

Wallace quickly pointed out that Huckabee had his facts confused. The Obama administration said that while the discriminatory law would no longer be defended in court, it would be still be enforced.

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“It’s really the same thing,” Huckabee insisted. “He has decided that this is a part of the law he doesn’t like so he is not going to recognize it. I don’t think a president in the executive branch can thumb his nose at a branch of government that is incomplete in its assessment of the law.”

This video is from Fox’s Fox News Sunday, broadcast Feb. 27, 2011.



