January 1, 2008

On Meet the Press on Sunday, Rev. Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, said he doesn’t know whether people are born gay — and then equated being gay with being a murderer or rapist by saying he was not equating one with the other:

Transcript starts at 04:38:

HUCKABEE: The perfection of God is seen in a marriage in which one man, one woman live together as a couple committed to each other as life partners. Even married couples don’t do that perfectly so sin is not some act of equating people with murders or rapists.

RUSSERT: But when you say someone is aberrant or unnatural, do you believe you’re born gay or you choose to be gay?

HUCKABEE: I don’t know whether people are born that way. People who are gay say that they are 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… [Changes topic.]

It would have been nice if Russert had followed up with the next logical question: If you believe sexuality is a choice, does that mean you chose to be straight?

Last year, when the late, unlamented Jerry Falwell told Russert’s colleague Chris Matthews on “Hardball” that he believed gay people chose their sexuality, Matthews shocked his detractors by lobbing back an actual hardball.

Matthews asked the old mullah, “Did you choose to be heterosexual?”

Without thinking, Falwell answered, “I did.”

A few seconds later, Matthews returned to the question, asking Falwell how old he was when he chose to be heterosexual. At that point, Falwell appeared to realize he’d been hoisted on the illogical reasoning in one of the foundational tenets of evangelical homophobia — that gay people always “choose” their sexuality but straight people never do. Falwell closed out the discussion by contradicting his earlier statement that he decided to be straight (apparently at age 13, when he started dating) with the diametrically opposite assertion that “I…I never had to decide.”

Here’s the video, transcript follows.

[…]

It’s hard to believe but Mike Huckabee just keeps getting worse and worse. Now he’s going around telling people that doctors who perform abortions should be punished.

Abortion, you will recall, is legal and is the woman’s decision. At least that’s the way it is in my America, the one where Jesus stays out of the Oval Office.

Jesus loved the recently deceased (in prison, thank you) murderer and to Huck, that’s all that matters. And that’s the problem.

In the NBC interview, Huckabee, a longtime opponent of legalized abortion, said he does not believe that women should be punished for undergoing the procedure, but that doctors might need to face sanctions.

“I don’t know that you’d put him in prison, but there’s something to me untoward about a person who has committed himself to healing people and to making people alive who would take money to take an innocent life and to make that life dead,” Huckabee said.

Is it me, or is he starting to sound like Bush? “Making people alive?” “Make that life dead?”

Huckabee went on to reassure people that he won’t let his personal religious views control his governing.

Those skeptical of the role of faith in his presidency, he said, should look at his record in Arkansas.

Funny you should mention that.

[…]

Day: January 1, 2008

Does Huckabee Think He Was Born Heterosexual?

Faith-Based Decision-Making Will Hamper the Huckster

Poetic Justice

Verbatim

“One woman at a rally in New Jersey told me last week that she was ‘nauseously optimistic.’ That may capture a lot of people’s last-minute jitters.”

— Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), quoted by Axios, on what Democrats feel ahead of the midterm elections.

“I think Congress made a mistake not protesting turning the Rose Garden into what looks like the entrance to Liberace’s bathroom.”

— Former President Bill Clinton, quoted by The Wrap.

“Boy, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. It feels like a real desperation play to me, because it has got zero basis in the law.”

— Republican election law expert Ben Ginsberg, quoted by Politico, on the Trump administration’s effort to invalidate Alaska’s election results.

Numerati

3,824

$1.4 billion

-35 points

31%

63% to 38%

KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”