Mike Huckabee is the Darling of the Anti-LGBT Right

by Michael Jones · 2009-09-19 17:10:00 UTC
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Mike Huckabee

The GOP sure has a way of resurrecting their dead. Or rather, their losing Presidential candidates. There was Richard Nixon (lost in 1960). There was the first George Bush (lost in 1980). Bob Dole (also lost in 1980). John McCain (lost in 2000). And now there's former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who while getting his clock cleaned in 2008 after a few surprise primary victories, has again emerged as a darling of the radical, anti-LGBT right-wing.

Huckabee won a 2012 GOP presidential straw poll at this weekend's "Value Voters Summit" in Washington, D.C., a gathering sponsored by the extremely anti-gay Family Research Council. Not only did he win, but he mopped the floor with the other candidates, beating them by more than 2 to 1.Huckabee's 28 percent bested Mitt Romney, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence (all of whom finished with about 12 percent).

What does this say? Well, perhaps not much, given that 2012 is three years away. But on another level, it's a sign that instead of learning from the drubbing that the GOP took in 2008 (and 2006), they're not backing away from extreme right positions on social issues that go against the grain of the American public. Huckabee was only too thrilled to echo that sentiment at the Value Voters Summit.

"There are so many people who have told us as conservatives that we should move to the center, on the sanctity of marriage or the sanctity of life," Huckabee said. "I'm not sure the center makes a whole lot of sense."

Huckabee is one of the most bigoted politicians in the Republican party. Huckabee has said he finds LGBT people to be aberrant and sinful. Huckabee has suggested that gay marriage would be the downfall of civilization. Huckabee is excited to be speaking at an organization in Illinois that has compared LGBT people to Nazis and has urged churches to respond to homosexuality as if it were on par with nazism.

Politics like that get you the top spot in GOP straw polls? Embarassing. Politics like that should get you branded the David Duke of the 21st century.

Instead Huckabee is celebrated among the religious right. If the GOP is willing to embrace Mike Huckabee, than they better be willing to embrace a man who calls LGBT people sinful, and a man who would rather speak at an organization comparing gay people to Nazis than an organization like the ACLU -- which he's also apparently comfortable trashing.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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