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.
Transcript starts at 01:05.
MATTHEWS: How did they get to be gay though?
FALWELL: Well, we probably differ there…
MATTHEWS: I’m asking…
FALWELL: I think all behavior is choice.
MATTHEWS: I’m open. I don’t know.
FALWELL: I think…
MATTHEWS: Did you chose [sic] to be heterosexual?
FALWELL: I did.
MATTHEWS: You chose it? You thought about it and you came up with that solution… that lifestyle?
FALWELL: I was taught as a child that that’s the right way…
MATTHEWS: But did you feel an attraction toward women?
FALWELL: Of course.
MATTHEWS: But when people are born and they find themselves have attraction to the same sex, you think that’s a choice?
FALWELL: I think you can experiment with any kind of perversity and, ah, develop an appetite for it. Just like you can food.
MATTHEWS: You don’t think it’s nurture, uh, nature? You think it’s nurture.
FALWELL: I don’t think anybody is born a bank robber or born a hostile leftwinger or a hostile rightwinger or gay or a promiscuous heterosexual. I think there comes a time in childhood where — environment may be a part of it, teaching … instruction — one chooses, “I will do this or that.” That’s why good godly parenting is so important.
MATTHEWS: How old were you when you chose to be heterosexual?
FALWELL: Oh, I don’t remember that…
MATTHEWS: You must since you say it was a big decision.
FALWELL: Well, I…I…I started dating when I was about 13.
MATTHEWS: And you had to decide between boys and girls? And you chose girls.
FALWELL: I…I never had to decide.
MATTHEWS: This is odd. I think it’s a ridiculous proposition that you actually would sit down and say, let me see, boy or girl…
FALWELL: I don’t think anybody [garbled].
At that point, Matthews changed the subject, which is too bad since it appeared that Falwell was about to say, “I don’t think anybody decides,” and thereby refute the entire rationale for faith-based homophobia.
Huckabee is the most overt and unembarrassed homophobe to get as far as he has in the presidential race since televangelist Pat Robertson ran in 1988:
Huckabee is also fervent in his efforts to deny gay men and women the right to choose to marry the ones they love. Recently, he told GQ that “civilization†may not survive if “what marriage and family means†is “rewritten†to allow gay marriage.
Russert also pressed Huckabee on his comparison of homosexuality to necrophilia, which he described as “publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations.†Huckabee claimed that he was not saying they were “equivalent,†but was only “pointing out†that they “are deviations from what has been the traditional concept of sexual behavior.â€
The full quote from Huckabee’s book that Russert excerpted was:
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.
On what planet are pedophilia, sadomasochism and necrophilia is a “publicly endorsed and institutionally supported” aberrations? I wish Russert had pressed him on that. And someone should drill him for details on how gay marriage could destroy civilization — especially since born-agains have a slightly higher divorce rate than rationalists.
Too bad Huckabee won’t get any farther in ’08 than Robertson did in ’88. If he were to win the GOP nomination next year, independent voters would run, not walk, in November to vote for whomever the Democratic candidate turned out to be.
Screw Huckleberry Hound, he’s a joke, a cartoon… Oh, you mean HUCKABEE… Well, him too.
GEE!!!!!! Huckabee is right!!!!!! Same sex marriage is just not RIGHT!!!!!!!!