Huckabee's Notable Quotes

Gov. Mike Huckabee isn't exactly what you'd call gay-friendly and he isn't afraid to say his version of Christianity defines his thought processes. Here's a glimpse of his more notorious anti-gay remarks.

Via Yahoo News: "I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives...I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."

Huckabee on AIDS via Pam's House Blend:

GQ: Is the strategy shifting because social conservatives are losing on those core issues? Ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable to have gay marriage even in liberal Massachusetts. Now it's there.

Huckabee: I don't think the issue's about being against gay marriage. It's about being for traditional marriage and articulating the reason that's important. You have to have a basic family structure. There's never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived. So there is a sense in which, you know, it's one thing to say if people want to live a different way, that's their business. But when you want to redefine what family means or what marriage means, then that's an issue that should require some serious and significant debate in the public square.

I had simply made the point, and I still believe this today, that in the late '80s and early '90s, when we didn't know as much as we do now about AIDS, we were acting more out of political correctness than we were about the normal public health protocols that we would have acted - as we have recently, for example, with avian flu, which - I spent hours and hours, and months, in fact, as a governor dealing with a pandemic plan that we were looking at which called for isolating carriers if they contracted that disease.

WALLACE: But, Governor, forgive me. I don't think that's right. All the way back in 1985, this wasn't political correctness. The Centers for Disease Control back in '85, seven years before you made your statement, said that AIDS could not be spread by casual contact.

HUCKABEE: There was also the case of Kimberly Bergalis, who testified before Congress in 1991. She had contracted AIDS from her dentist.

We didn't think that there was a casual transmission. There were studies that showed that. But there were other concerns being voiced by public health officials.

Now, would I say things a little differently in 2007? Probably so. But I'm not going to recant or retract from the statement that I did make because, again, the point was not saying we ought to lock people up who have HIV/AIDS.

I knew people who had AIDS. I had a close friend who died of it in the 1980s. He was a hemophiliac. He contracted it through a blood transfusion. I had other friends of mine, one of whom passed away - he was, in fact, homosexual.

But my point is that I was trying to talk about the different public health protocols that we were dealing with. I think what it really does show, though, is that when people are digging back into everything I've ever said and done - and I understand that, it's part of the political process.

But what I'm not going to do is to go back and now try to change every story I've ever had. I'm going to simply say that that was exactly what I said. I don't run from it, don't recant from it.

Would I say it a little differently today? Sure, in light of 15 years of additional knowledge and understanding, I would.

Huckabee takes more heat for his homophobia via Pam's House Blend:

MR. RUSSERT: Peggy Noonan, a woman of faith who writes for The Wall Street Journal, said that sometimes it appears your philosophy is "This is what God wants," and that doesn't encourage discussion, it squelches it. And, and this is what you wrote in your book, "Kids Who Kill," in 1998: "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." Why would you link homosexuality with sadomasochism, pedophilia and necrophilia?

GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, what I was pointing out is all of these are deviations from what has been the traditional concept of sexual behavior and men and women having children, raising those children in the context of a, of a traditional marriage and family. And, again, taken out of the larger context of that book, speaking about how so many of our social institutions have been broken down.

MR. RUSSERT: But do you think homosexuality is equivalent to pedophilia...

GOV. HUCKABEE: Oh, of course not.

MR. RUSSERT: ...or sadomasochism?

GOV. HUCKABEE: No, of course not. I didn't say...

MR. RUSSERT: But this is what concerns people. This, this is what you did say about homosexuality: "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle." That's millions of Americans.

GOV. HUCKABEE: Tim, understand, when a Christian speaks of sin, a Christian says all of us are sinners. I'm a sinner, everybody's a sinner. What one's sin is, means it's missing the mark. It's missing the bull's eye, the perfect point. I miss it every day; we all do. 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. Now, even married couples don't do that perfectly, so sin is not some act of equating people with being murderers or rapists...

And when Ann Coulter told him he wasn't homophobic enough, he sent her a letter to bone up on his homophobic bona fides, again via Pam's House Blend (lot's of good stuff there):

Ann Coulter's comments are based on a response I made during a radio call-in show in which a caller asked what I thought about the Supreme Court ruling on Lawrence v. Texas. At the time I had not read the ruling and was basing my opinion on the summary by the caller. After reading the decision I believe it is obvious that the ruling was wrongly decided.

Lawrence v. Texas is an extreme example of judicial activism. It could, in fact, be inappropriately used to attack our marriage laws nationwide.

I am in agreement with the dissent by Justices Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas:

"[The ruling] dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is 'no legitimate state interest' for purposes of proscribing that conduct, ...what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising 'the liberty protected by the Constitution'?"

Furthermore, As Justice Thomas said, we might disagree with the wisdom of a law, but that is the province of the Legislature, not unelected judges. No such activist Justices will be appointed as long as I am President.

I wish Ms. Coulter had contacted me or my campaign to discuss my position in detail before writing her column. I would have appreciated the opportunity to clarify this matter.