{"id":14082,"date":"2007-12-31T08:25:03","date_gmt":"2007-12-31T13:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14082.html"},"modified":"2007-12-31T08:25:03","modified_gmt":"2007-12-31T13:25:03","slug":"huckabee-to-gays-no-sex-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/huckabee-to-gays-no-sex-for-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Huckabee to gays: No sex for you"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Huckabee was taking a bit of a chance appearing<\/a> on “Meet the Press” with just a few days left before the Iowa caucuses — an unimpressive showing would have created quite a bit of negative media buzz in the closing days — but the former governor didn’t make any errors that were so serious, they’re likely to hurt his campaign.<\/p>\n

That said, he made several noteworthy comments. For example, there was this odd exchange on Huckabee’s opinions on homosexuality. (TP has the video<\/a>)<\/p>\n

RUSSERT: But when you say [“I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle”], do you believe you’re born gay or you choose to be gay?<\/p>\n

HUCKABEE: I don’t know whether people are born that way. People who are gay say that they’re born that way. But one thing I know, that the behavior one practices is a choice. We may have certain tendencies, but how we behave and how we carry out our behavior….”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I see. So, Huckabee doesn’t actually care if someone is gay, he cares whether or not gays are celibate<\/em>. “Tendencies” don’t matter to Huckabee, whether gays act<\/i> on those tendencies is what counts.<\/p>\n

And here I thought his years of bizarre criticism<\/a> of the gay community were a sign of intolerance. I’ve clearly misjudged him.<\/p>\n

Russert also quizzed<\/a> Huckabee on his stated desire to take the nation “back for Christ.”
\n<\/p>\n

RUSSERT: And then, and then this comment. “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.” Where does…<\/p>\n

HUCKABEE: Which was, by the way, that phrase was one I think was 1998, is that when it was? The 1998 speech?<\/p>\n

RUSSERT: Yeah.<\/p>\n

HUCKABEE: To the Southern Baptist Convention. So it was a speech made to a Christian gathering, and, and certainly that would be appropriate to be said to a gathering of Southern Baptists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I haven’t the foggiest idea what that means. Huckabee said he hopes people take the United States “back for Christ” — what difference does it make who his audience was? Either he wants to lead the country in an officially, explicitly Christian direction, or he doesn’t. Why would it be “appropriate” for him to make this proclamation in front of one audience and not another?<\/p>\n

Maybe, a Huckabee supporter might say, none of this really matters, because he’s vowed not to let his faith dictate government policy. That’s true; he has offered that assurance.<\/p>\n

But there’s that gubernatorial record<\/a> of his that occasionally gets in the way of his campaign promises.<\/p>\n

Five days after the tornado tore through the state, [Arkadelphia, Ark., a] city of 10,000 lay in ruins. The cyclone destroyed an office building, a bank, a pharmacy and 70 other businesses. The electricity was out. The National Guard patrolled the streets. Six people were dead.<\/p>\n

In Little Rock, GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee was reviewing a disaster insurance measure that he intended to support when he became troubled: The bill, drawing on centuries-old legal terminology, referred to natural disasters as “acts of God.”<\/p>\n

In a time of emergency, Huckabee would hold up the measure for more than three weeks to press his personal objection that the Almighty could not be blamed for the region’s loss. In the process, he drew damaging headlines and created new strains in his relations with the state’s legislature, the General Assembly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, to be fair, it’s worth noting that there’s no indication that Huckabee’s decision to delay the bill adversely affected anyone. But the state legislation in question sought to protect tornado victims from insurance companies that might cancel their policies, and used language — “acts of God” — which is standard in many insurance policies.<\/p>\n

One state senator noted, “Instead of getting focused on getting aid to the areas, he’s in an uproar over words. It was kind of silly.”<\/p>\n

Huckabee told Russert yesterday that the best way to consider whether he would blend faith and public policy is to look at “how I served as a governor.” That’s hardly reassuring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Huckabee was taking a bit of a chance appearing on “Meet the Press” with just a few days left before the Iowa caucuses — an unimpressive showing would have created quite a bit of negative media buzz in the closing days — but the former governor didn’t make any errors that were so serious, […]<\/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-14082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14082","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=14082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}