CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is optimistic his legislature will quickly reinstate a ban on same-sex couples serving as foster parents, conceding that it would prevent Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter from serving in that role.

“It would apply to anybody,” Huckabee said. “What they do is their business, but what we are talking about is whether the state should place a child in a relationship that is not recognized by the state as a marriage.”

Huckabee was questioned about an Arkansas Supreme Court ruling striking down regulations banning placement of foster children with same-sex couples. A lawsuit brought by four people argued the state’s ban was discriminatory – a view shared by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minster, has said there is little doubt the Legislature will reinstate the ban and that it will eventually be upheld by the courts.

The high court said state officials overreached in imposing the ban, but didn’t rule on its merit.

“Our attorneys read into that that if it was legislation it would likely stand; that we could in fact say that only married couples could be foster parents,” Huckabee said. “We think that if we go back and codify that into law that probably takes care of it.”

Vice President Cheney has a lesbian daughter, a fact he has been public with. That issue was raised in the last presidential campaign.

Huckabee said the Arkansas dispute had nothing to do with the welfare of children.

“What I feared was going on was that the plaintiffs in this case were not as interested in foster children as they were in making the political point of homosexual activism,” Huckabee said. “That’s troubling that we would use children as a political tool to enact something that has nothing to do with the best interest of a foster child.”

He said his religious and moral views have shaped his approach to the issue, a view he said is shared overwhelmingly in his home state.