Republican Party stacking up with presidential hopefuls

The Republican voters have three more presidential hopefuls in the presidential race in 2016, two of which have never held political office and one who made a run in 2008.

Dr. Ben Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon and author, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina joined Arkansas’ former governor and FOX News star Mike Huckabee this week in announcing their run for the Republican nomination in the 2016 election for president.

Carson, the first to announce on May 3, is a very conservative Republican who has opposed marriage equality.

Carson attributes his views on same-sex marriage to his interpretation of Judeo-Christian scriptures.

“One can choose God’s word or the gay marriage agenda,” he wrote in 2014. He ran into trouble earlier this year when he said homosexuality is “absolutely” a choice. He later apologized.

Fiorina threw her hat into the race May 4 and while she does not support same-sex marriage (she supported Prop 8 when she ran for U.S. Senate in California in 2010), she has a more moderate view on gay rights than her Republican colleagues in the race.

Fiorina supports equal rights under the law for gay couples. While at the helm of Hewlett-Packard, committed gay couples received the same benefits as traditionally married men and women. That has influenced her position. She believes it to be unfair for the government to protect the rights of some citizens, and not others.

Huckabee has been a staunch opponent of the LGBT community since his previous run for president in 2008.

He’s criticized the “militant gay community” and its opposition to “religious liberty” laws in Indiana and Arkansas.

“It won’t stop,” Huckabee said, “until there are no more churches, until there are no more people who are spreading the Gospel, and I’m talking now about the unabridged, unapologetic Gospel that is really God’s truth.”

Huckabee has defended the use of conversion therapy and, in February, compared being gay to drinking alcohol or swearing as “lifestyle choices.”

The GOP nominee will be selected at The Republican National Convention on July 18-21 in 2016.

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