US presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, has drawn a certain amount of ridicule for his campaign against rainbow-themed tortilla chips.

However, Huckabee's objection to food giant Frito-Lay is targeted at its choice of partner rather than at its colourful Doritos.

Frito-Lay, which produces a range of popular snacks, has joined up with the It Gets Better project to combat the bullying of LGBT people. It offered to send a bag of its rainbow-coloured Doritos to anyone who donated $10 or more to the project; It Gets Better reported that they had sold out.

Huckabee is a firm opponent of same-sex marriage. However, his ire is particularly focused on the founder of It Gets Better, gay activist Dan Savage, who is known for his anti-Christian sentiments.

In an email to Frito-Lay management, Huckabee highlighted a video in which Savage attacked him personally with various crude sexual references. He said: "It is beyond me to understand how a responsible corporation would think that partnering with someone who spews the vicious vitriol that Savage does would be worthy of your corporate contributions."

He asked the managers to: "Please view the ... video. Better yet, play it in one of your corporate board meetings and ask if it represents the values and views of Frito-Lay. If not, you should apologize, sever ties with hate groups like Savage's, and explain how you were unaware of his history.

"If it does represent the corporate values of Frito-Lay, then the Christian community needs to be made aware that Frito-Lay has decided to not seek their business."

Huckabee has joined forces with the American Renewal Project, a lobbying group of evangelical pastors, which has emailed 100,000 supporters urging them to boycott Frito-Lay products. ARP's head, David Lane, told Time magazine: "It's a war of ideology. Frito-Lay has stepped into a cultural war."