The fact that former Arkansas Governor and talk show host Mike Huckabee will be attending a conference in which a workshop on combating the so-called homosexual agenda is to be co-led by a SPLC designated hate group shouldn't be surprising.
Also, the fact that he has aligned himself with former SPLC hate group, the Illinois Family Institute also is not shocking.
That is if you are aware of Huckabee's ugly history of stigmatizing the lgbt community.
In 1992 when he ran for Senate, he advocated quarantining AIDS patients. Huckabee was answering an Associated Press survey when he said the following:
"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague," he wrote. "It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents."
In 2007, Huckabee was confronted with his past statements when he ran for president. According to an ABC News article, he chalked up the statement to being ignorant in regards to how AIDS is spread:
"Fifteen years ago, the AIDS crisis was just that, a crisis," he said. "There was still a great deal of, I think, uncertainty about just how widespread AIDS was, how it could be transmitted. So we know more now than we did in 1992, all of us do -- hopefully."
However, the same ABC News article brings up this fact:
Four years before Huckabee's statement, however, President Ronald Reagan's surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, sent out a brochure about AIDS to American homes in which Koop wrote, "No matter what you may have heard, the AIDS virus is hard to get and is easily avoided. You won't just catch AIDS like a cold or flu because the virus is a different type. The AIDS virus is transmitted through sexual intercourse, the sharing of drug needles or to babies of infected mothers before or during birth."
In that same 1992 survey, he said the following about homosexuality:
"homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk."
In the ABC News article, Huckabee maintained that what he said about homosexuality was still his belief except for the part about it being a health risk.
But if you want get a good indication as to where Huckabee stands on the lgbt community, check out this 2009 exchange on his talk show between him and guest Ann Coulter (starting at 4:00):
Huck to Coulter: I am not, as you characterize me in one article, pro-gay and pro-sodomy -- that is SO not me.
Coulter: Yes, there was a Supreme Court decision you agreed or disagreed with...yes, I got you on that one Mike Huckabee...
Huck: Nope, you didn't. I am definitely not pro-sodomy -- I promise, scout's honor. There are many things I might be but that is not one of them.
I've watched how Huckabee manuevers through the talk show circuit and parses his comments into feel good soundbites. The problem is that no one, except for that ABC News article, has really confronted him with his statements and especially not his allegiances.
And I wonder if anyone ever will.
Big hat tip to Pams House Blend.
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