{"id":13858,"date":"2007-12-08T13:54:09","date_gmt":"2007-12-08T18:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13858.html"},"modified":"2007-12-08T13:54:09","modified_gmt":"2007-12-08T18:54:09","slug":"mike-huckabee-believes-strange-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mike-huckabee-believes-strange-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Huckabee believes strange things"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s probably fair to say that Mike Huckabee has had a strange week. On the one hand, he’s been surging in the polls<\/a>, picking up religious right endorsements, and is now considered the frontrunner in the Iowa caucuses. On the other hand, he’s been caught lying<\/a> about the Wayne Dumond scandal, he’s proven that has no idea<\/a> what the National Intelligence Estimate is, he’s completed a dramatic flip-flop<\/a> on immigration policy, and he’s presented himself as literally God’s own anointed<\/a> presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

It’s created an odd political dynamic — a folksy Baptist preacher who can charm radical Christian fundamentalists<\/a> and DC media establishment types like David Broder and David Brooks with equal ease.<\/p>\n

There’s one detail, though, that the prior group appreciates and the latter group ignores: Mike Huckabee has some very<\/i> odd beliefs. He rejects modern biology; he’s argued publicly that Roe v. Wade may have created an immigration problem; and he’s said that if a man and a woman live together outside of marriage, they’re engaging in a “demeaning … alternate lifestyle<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Today, the AP<\/i> picks up on<\/a> one of Huckabee’s other more unusual social beliefs (which the fine folks at Right Wing Watch began publicizing a few days ago<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could “pose a dangerous public health risk.”<\/p>\n

As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.<\/p>\n

“If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague [from the general population],” Huckabee wrote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the same questionnaire, Huckabee added, “I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk.”<\/p>\n

He did not appear to be kidding.
\n
\nNow, it’s tempting to think that perhaps it was just the ignorance of the times. 1992 was a while ago, and perhaps there was still widespread confusion in the country about the nature of AIDS and those who are HIV positive.<\/p>\n

Except that’s far too forgiving an explanation. The AP<\/i> noted that in 1992, “it was common knowledge that AIDS could not be spread by casual contact.” Four years before<\/i> Huckabee expressed support for a quarantine, C. Everett Koop and the Surgeon General’s office explained to the nation that the disease could not be contracted through everyday contact.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Magic Johnson had announced that he had contracted the disease in 1991, leading to an even broader national understanding about AIDS.<\/p>\n

Now, to be fair, Huckabee may have changed his mind on some of these issues since 1992, at least we can hope so. That said, it’s worth remembering that a) at a minimum, Huckabee was<\/i> quite a nut when it came to AIDS and anti-gay bigotry; and b) he’s not exactly rushing to dissociate himself with his previous comments — the AP reported, “Huckabee did not return messages left with his campaign.”<\/p>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s probably fair to say that Mike Huckabee has had a strange week. On the one hand, he’s been surging in the polls, picking up religious right endorsements, and is now considered the frontrunner in the Iowa caucuses. On the other hand, he’s been caught lying about the Wayne Dumond scandal, he’s proven that has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}