The former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, resigned from the Country Music Association Foundation board of directors this week.

Huckabee faced a backlash over a number of stances against LGBT rights he has aired throughout his time as Governor of Arkansas and beyond.

He wrote: “I genuinely regret that some in the industry were so outraged by my appointment that they bullied the CMA and the Foundation with economic threats and vowed to withhold support for the programs for students if I remained.”

The two-time Republican presidential candidate Huckabee, has in the past hit out at same-sex marriage, comparing it to incest and polygamy, suggesting that adoption by same-sex couples is experimentation, has attacked trans people, joked about rape and murder, used gay as an insult, and various other anti-LGBT stances.

He oddly did not mention the controversy around his LGBT-rights stance in his letter.

But he did write: “If the industry doesn’t want people of faith or who hold conservative and traditional political views to buy tickets and music, they should be forthcoming and say it.”

The Country Music Association Foundation was warned by business owners that they would drop support if Huckabee remained as a board member.

He told Monument CEO Sarah Trahern and CMA Foundation executive Tiffany Kerns that his companies and their clients would drop support of the foundation in light of Huckabee’s appointment

“Huckabee speaks of the sort of things that would suggest my family is morally beneath his and uses language that has a profoundly negative impact upon young people all across this country,” wrote Owen wrote in an email published by MusicRow.

“Not to mention how harmful and damaging his deep involvement with the NRA is. What a shameful choice.”