Huckabee endorsed statement urging wives to ‘graciously submit’

December 11, 2007

If Mike Huckabee’s other odd beliefs about religion, science, and culture weren’t quite enough to bring his campaign into doubt, maybe this will.

In August of 1998, Huckabee was one of 131 signatories to a full page USA Today Ad which declared: “I affirm the statement on the family issued by the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention.” What was in the family statement from the SBC? “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.”

The ad wasn’t just a blanket, “we support the SBC statement,” but rather highlighted details. The ad Huckabee signed specifically said of the SBC family statement: “You are right because you called wives to graciously submit to their husband’s sacrificial leadership.”

Andrew Sullivan added, “The group did not back away from the ad after a media firestorm. It seems to me that Huckabee should be asked if he still stands by that. And if he thinks it applies to Senator Clinton.”

It’s hard to say how far-right Republican primary voters will respond to these kinds of revelations. I’d like to think items like these will hurt Huckabee, even among conservatives, but time will tell.

Either way, it gets back to a point I mentioned the other day — Huckabee’s easy skate to the GOP’s top-tier is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, he’s been able to quietly sneak up on his rivals, who’ve been going after one another and leaving Huckabee alone. On the other hand, now that the race has reached crunch time, and Huckabee is a credible challenger for the nomination, all of the scrutiny comes at once, and the former governor has to be able to keep up.

But he can’t. Huckabee has a small staff, he’s woefully unprepared for questions like these, and he’s struggling badly. With each passing day, crazy things like this come up, and neither Huckabee nor his aides can explain them away.

If the Republican establishment wasn’t worried before, it should be now.

The Republican establishment still has Rudy Giuliani as a front-runner, and recent discussion suggests the Republican base thinks Rudy Giuliani is the man to beat the Democrats. They’re so far out of touch with reality that I doubt anything will worry them.

  • That kind of sentiment is pretty standard fare in the conservative evangelical circles with which I’m familiar– and it is, I think, either a direct quote or a close paraphrase of a passage from the book of Timothy. I don’t think it will hurt Huckabee’s standing much in the primary, though it may come back to bite him in the general election if he gets that far.

  • The root cause of the recent epidemic of gayness in the Republican party: their women aren’t putting out enough. What did these guys expect with all this talk of abstinence being so bloody virtuous. Henceforth, Huckabee’s new nickname is “blue balls.”

  • Maybe this explains why we haven’t seen or heard from Mrs. Huckabee.

    Seriously, would any of you know her if you fell over her?

  • anne – the short answer is “no,” but I did hear her on NPR’s series of interviews with the candidates’ spouses. she did a nice job, actually.

  • The idea of the wife submitting to the husband is based on the assumption that the husband submits to God, and in turn, as the head of the household, the huband should have a good, God bearing family in which he treats every member with respect and likewise. If you are a woman that does not have a God bearing husband that mistreats you, abuses you, misguides you, or suppresses you, etc. You should not submit to him. That’s all in the Bible

  • There you go again CB, thinking women should be real people with minds of their own. I doubt most Republican primary voters will see it that way.

  • Hey TB, there are plenty of “good” Christian men abusing their wives. The Bible is full of that misogynistic crap.

  • “Headship of Christ”? Those suckers have turned it into a head trip.

    Actually I think petorado is on to something. The SBC’s Executive Committee included this gentleman until he asked a cop to back to his hotel room.

    Note: I think he deserves a full credit for affirming that sex between consenting adults is not a crime. Especially since I doubt he wants it.

  • Given that the SBC does nothing more than wrap their xenophobic bigotries in the word “jesus”—which is in no way similar to that carpentry-fellow from Nazareth named Jesus—I see no reason why women should submit to their husbands.

    Unless, of course, the woman-in-question is a flagrant masochistic ninnyhammer with a penchant toward living a bald-faced lie spewed about the neighborhood by a cheap, boozed-up, addle-brained, patriarchal, bin-Laden-esque Pharisee….

  • i’ve always thought that the huckster was completely nuts but benefiting from the fact that for long periods of time – especially if you’re not paying really close attention to what he’s saying (and that would describe the national press corps) – he can sound quite lucid and reasonable.

    his current bounce is, i think, the result of being the current “none of the above” in the repub field.

  • Thanks for the links to Janet Huckabee’s pictures – I also couldn’t recall if I’d ever heard her first name, either, so thanks for that, too!

    Huckabee does have a bullseye on his back now – Brian Williams tonight on NBC pretty much introduced a story on Huckabee’s ethics issues just that way. And the ethics issues were not to the level of Shagfest, but they added a whiff of something, well, “off.”

    Apparently, the Huckabees have supplemented their income for years through the kindness of strangers – I think my favorite thing was learning that when he and Janet were preparing to leave the governor’s mansion, they put themselves on several department stores’ wedding registries, so that those so inclined could buy them the items the Huckabees thought they’d like to have in their new life in the private sector. That scheme turned off a lot of people, and the registry was taken down.

    Huckabee says that he was never found to have violated the state’s ethics laws, but there were, I think, 5 investigations, most having to do with nice jobs going to those who gave nice gifts.

    If it is more blessed to give than to receive, I guess Huckabee was just putting others above himself, sacrificing some of God’s grace so that others could feel the love.

  • Janet Huckabee is no shrinking violet. She ran for the office of Arkansas Secretary of State (she lost). She was nicknamed the “First Tomboy” because of her pursuit of outdoor sports, including hunting. She’s often a little too outspoken with the press.

    I can echo some of the earlier posters in affirming that the “submission” of wives to their husbands is interpreted more creatively than those of us outside conservative Christian circles might assume. I don’t think it’ll do as much damage to his primary campaign as the Dumond pardon, or some of his more autocratic behavior as Governor. I’m beginning to think of him as more akin to Rudy than any of his other rivals. When Huckabee left office he had eighty government computers crushed (at taxpayer expense), to prevent anyone from delving into his archives. What’s that about?

  • As it turns out, the number of hard drives destroyed is not 80, but 83. I think that’s a nicer number. Don’t you? One less than twice the meaning of the universe, and all. Truly, Huckleby will be the gift that keeps on giving….

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  • i ssay this not out of any support or defense of Huckabee, but about now were I him I’d be asking Brian Williams et al “did you ever go after RooDee with this much effort? Why does he get virtually a pass for skeletons a lot worse than mine?”

  • Misogyny like this is one of the biggest reasons I left the evangelical church I grew up in. The divorced, widowed, and never married women were considered just slightly better than prostitutes, because they didn’t have a man to head their households. Women couldn’t hold any church office except as secretaries, pot-luck dinner organizers, babysitters during the service, greeters at the door,or other “servant” jobs. Childless women with careers were viewed as “unnatural”, and probably man-hating, bra-burning lesbians. This attitude was bad enough, but it came straight out of the Bible. When I finally started thinking for myself, I realized that there is absolutely no reason why having a penis should qualify anyone to run my life for me. As far as I’m concerned, the fundies can take their megachurches, and their hate-filled Bibles, and shove them straight up their asses.

    The Repub candidates are bad enough in that their a bunch of rich, ugly, old white men with absolutely nothing to offer the country, but when you throw in the whole patriarchal fundamentalist attitude, then you’ve got Ugly like you’ve never seen before. Huckabee represents every bad thing that this kind of religion has to offer.

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  • It’s only a difference in degree between what these evangelicals do to their women and what the Taliban (et. al.) to to theirs. The same thing can be said for their treatment of gays, non-believers (or infidels, if you will), etc.

    Isn’t the world ready for athiesm (or at least agnosticism) yet? Gawds, I’m so sick of religious nutjobs.

    A couple of possible bright notes, though:

    Huckbee Agrees To Meet With Ryan White Mom

    and

    Lawsuit Begins Against Public Funding Of Homophobic School

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  • Again, though, it comes back to the interpretation of “submit gracefully to the servant leadership of their husbands”. I know little about the SBC, so I won’t begin to comment there. What this particular line means, however, at least in the Biblical context, is simply this:

    The husband makes crucial decisions, and the wife allows him to make those decisions. That is the simplest, most basic interpretation. To dig deeper, the woman is challenged to do this, similar to the way Christians are challenged to obey Biblical laws. It doesn’t always happen, but it Should.

    What is missing form the interpretation: Servant Leadership. This key phrase is often skimmed over by those not familiar with Christian teachings. However, for one who has studied Biblical teachings to any degree, it becomes apparent the weight is not placed on the wife, to submit, but on the husband, to be a Servant Leader. This entails making each decision not with his own objectives in mind, but those of the family. This also entails making the wisest decisions from a purely objective standpoint. In no way does it entail making decisions based on personal preference. It is considered by many Biblical scholars to be one of the most difficult, all-encompassing charges in the Bible.

    Considering this weight is left on the husband, the wife is merely asked to accept his judgment, leaving her free to tend to other traditionally female endeavors, such as raising children. This does, however, assume the husband acts with the interests of his wife in mind, as opposed to acting in pure self-interest. If only all men could be trusted to do so, there would be no dispute.

    So, sexism, gender roles, and political correctness aside, I agree wholeheartedly with this one statement. This does not mean I agree that “a woman’s place in the the house (and the Senate?)” or that men are superior, or even that men are better suited to the task. I just believe that God said this was the roles of husband and wife (this statement IS scripturally supported, unlike a few others tossed around), and as such, I have no choice but to agree, and when married, try my hardest to be a Servant Leader, and do what is in the best interest of my family, instead of myself.

    So comparing conservative Christians to the Taliban, as suggested above, is entirely ridiculous. It is statements such as those that allow a false stereotype of atheists as a group, just as the Westboro Baptist Church allows a false stereotype of Christians.

  • I went to a Southern Baptist Christian denomination school for 4 years and I have to agree that they view and treat women lower and with little respect. For instance leadership roles in the church were given to men and they expect their wives to do whatever they want them to do mainly out of selfishness. Usually treated no better than a servant.

    One of the main problem is this particular church was responsible for racism and sexism back in the days. When women were trying to be liberated and gain rights, this similar group especially their men were the major opposition, siting that a woman’s place should be at home and submiting to their husband.
    Another issue is the slavery of blacks in that they fully support and impose it back then, citing it again as biblical and allowed by God, being that slaves are owned by their masters and be in submission to their owners and if they die, the owners compensate for nothing because they owned them.

    The women liberation by the way was started by women who had experience domestic violence at home primarily by their husbands, let alone it was more prevalent and common back then because women have no rights and men are fully aware that they are pretty much in power because women are dependent on them. In countries where women are still not liberated such as middle east, africa and India domestic violence is very prevalent. In these societies women are not permitted to be educated, attain jobs so they could support themselves and their primary job is caretakers and at home. They pretty much follow tha biblical concept of women being at home and men being in position of power. Now compare their society and social problems to countries where women have rights? Decide for yourself which society do you want to belong to? If the bible’s concept is ideal for society or family life, shouldn’t it be that their society should be better than ours?

    Other flaws of the church are their view of women to not be in leadership position in church, at home, and in the outside world because it was a God given role to men. In fact the church are spreading that educated women is a threat to the family because as more women are entering college and less of men they are taking on leadership roles. Another sexist issue is their debate that God created men to be in higher position in the afterlife than women because Christ said that those who wants to be first must be servant to the rest, interpreting that since men is told to be servant leaders, therefore God intended them to be in authority position in heaven, while womem will always be in subjection to men because it was ordained by God.
    Bob Jones University, a college with (SBC) christian denomination just remove their rules of prohibiting interracial dating amd marriage in their campus 2 years ago? What was their issue with that?
    Conclusion: I don’t think this denomination is good for society, minorities and women.

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