About a month ago, David Corn took a closer look at a book Mike Huckabee wrote as governor in 1998, called “Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence,” and found a “fierce culture warrior.” The Arkansan was especially pointed in his criticism of gays.
At one point in the book, Huckabee argues, “It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations — from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.”
It certainly looked like Huckabee was linking homosexuality with sadomasochism, pedophilia, and necrophilia, which is, of course, rather insane. On “Meet the Press” a few weeks ago, Tim Russert asked the former governor about this, and he said the comment in the book had been “taken out of the larger context of that book.”
Russert asked directly if Huckabee considers homosexuality somehow equivalent to pedophilia or sadomasochism. “No,” Huckabee said, “of course not.”
With this in mind, Huckabee’s interview with BeliefNet helped shed some additional light on his anti-gay animus. In context, the former governor had just explained why he wants to change the Constitution to mandate a Biblical definition of marriage, as he sees it. (via Greg Sargent)
Q: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.
HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic. (emphasis added)
Yep, ol’ Mike’s pretty far out there. Equating two people of the same gender getting married with bestiality may still be part of the Republican Party mainstream, but it should be on the fringe on modern political thought.
I’d just add, by the way, that Huckabee happens to be picking up where Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum left off.
Santorum said the priests were engaged in “a basic homosexual relationship” with “post-pubescent men”, and went on to say that he had “a problem with homosexual acts”; that the right to privacy “doesn’t exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution”; that, “whether it’s polygamy, whether it’s adultery, whether it’s sodomy, all of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family”; and that sodomy laws properly exist to prevent acts that “undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family”.
When the Associated Press reporter asked whether homosexuals should not then engage in homosexual acts, Santorum replied, “Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that’s what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality”.
I just can’t imagine what goes on in the minds of conservatives, that leads them to think of bestiality with such ease. It’s kind of scary, actually.