March 31st, 2011
Former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential Mike Huckabee spoke at the Rediscover God in America conference in Iowa last weekend. Before launching into his speech, Huckabee gave a shout-out to Christian historical revisionist David Barton. Barton, who is touted as a “historian” at the conference despite having no discernible credentials, holds that America was founded as an explicitly Christian nation and presents what he calls a “holy history” of America. Last October, Barton called on the U.S. government to “regulate homosexuality.”
Barton introduced Huckabee at he Rediscover God in America conference. Huckabee thanked Barton for his introduction and said, “I just wish that every single young person in america would be able to be under his tutelage and understand something about who we are as a nation. I almost wish there would be like a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced — forced, at gunpoint no less — to listen to every David Barton message. And I think our country would be better for it.”
I seem to recall North Vietnam doing something along those lines…
Okay, I know that he appears to be joking — the audience is laughing as though he were. But remember, this is the guy who defended the suggestion that gay men with HIV should have been rounded up and quarantined back in the day. And when he said that, he definitely wasn’t joking. In fact, he carefully parsed his message in order to try to make himself clear. So let’s just say that I haven’t the capacity for giving him even the smallest smidgeon of the benefit of doubt on this one.
Huckabee went on to call for “spiritual warriors” in a battle that “pits good against evil.” Among those evils: marriage equality:
Other possible GOP contenders speaking at the conference included former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and Mississippi governor Haley Barbour.
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Leonardo Ricardo
March 31st, 2011
This is very spiritually sick stuff as this cheap ex-gov-fox-entertainer and all-around giddy ignoramous indulges in the boastful and unholy for a cheap thrill at expense of innoncents–this man doesn´t know the heart of anyone–including himself–vile.
Mihangel apYrs
March 31st, 2011
I grieve for the US. It appears from everything I read, not just here and other gay blogs, that there is an element of Americans who would turn the US into a Xian mirror-image of Talibani Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia.
Where did the enlightenment go? What became of teh intellectually sustainable founding principles of an educated class seeking responsibility for running a civilised country on the European model, a country Paine was proud of?
David C.
March 31st, 2011
Ol’ Huck here keeps digging himself in deeper every day. Going on the record with remarks like this will not sit well with the typical middle-of-the-road voter. His enemies on the left will eviscerate him with some of the things he has said, and those on the right will do something similar as they court those same voters. Huck is outta luck me thinks (and hope, too).
elaygee
April 1st, 2011
Evil always smiles as it tries to gain influence.
Donny D.
April 1st, 2011
Two things about Mike Huckabee:
1) He seems to be desperate. With the “Kenya, oops, I mean Indonesia” birtherism, and the snuggling up with anti-gay hate groups that didn’t just make SPLC’s list last year (the American Family Association, the Bryan Fischer group that runs the Rediscover God in American Conference), he’s acting like he’s already running behind.
2) Huckabee presents himself as a small town, deeply evangelical nice guy — which is a sharp contrast with the rabid dog posturing of so many GOP conservatives today. He talks about genuinely helping families, perhaps even with some government aid, caring stewardship of the environment and not giving up on public schools since most people will continue to send their kid to them. And his nice guy tone continues when he talks about us. However, like in those other areas, his issue advocacy falls short of his presumed decency. And that seems especially true when he talks about us. I’ve looked at what he’s said about us, and it is as bad as or worse then most LGBT commentators say it is. I think he’s vulnerable in regard to the hypocrisy of his nice guy posing and the mean-spirited things he actually says about us.
Ben in Atlanta
April 1st, 2011
We still have the founding father’s own words:
http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html#Jefferson
Make of them what you will.
John
April 1st, 2011
When are sensible Republicans, if there are any left, going to stand up to their Tea Party highjackers?
cd
April 2nd, 2011
It’s not a hijack. It’s an alliance with perverse incentives.
The big money backers of the GOP want to expand their vulture capitalism, i.e. the running wreckdown and stripping of capital out of the old, failing, Middle American agrarian/industrial economic order.
The teapartiers and such are people who have tacitly given up on preserving that society and order (and frankly, virtuous white Christian Middle America as a concept) though they like it a lot and insist on maximal individual psychological satisfaction in return for getting burned over economically.
Not that most of either side really understands the bargain they have made. Though their leaders very likely do. The village both sides profess to love is being set on fire in order to save it.
Mykelb
April 6th, 2011
Huckabee is a Seven Mountains KKKristian dominionist. Don’t ever let him pull the wool over your eyes. He’s in it to turn America into a theocracy with every fibre of his body.
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