Don’t Let The Door Hit You In The Ass, Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee isn’t homophobic.

Mike loves all of God’s creatures, even the gay ones.

Sure he does.

That’s why he’s threatening to take his ball and go home if the Republican Party stops treating gay people like pariahs.

Given that recent polls show a majority of Americans now back same-sex marriages – or at least no longer actively object to the idea – Newsmax asked the former conservative governor if he saw the GOP dropping its objection to marriage equality.

Sounding like a Pharaoh who just realized he might have to build his next temple complex without Hebrew slaves,  Huckabee glumly admitted that the republican party might just pivot on the subject.

Then Huckabee dropped his ultimatum:

And if they do, they’re going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk

Evangelicals will leave the Republican Party?

Oh no!

What would the GOP be without evangelicals?

What would the GOP be without it’s shrill angry science-denying, gun-wavin’, money-loving, snake-handling, drill-baby-drillin’, gay-hatin’, uterus-obsessing, bible-thumping core demographic?

Why, they might even eventually become a reasonable party of rational people who could actually attract moderates from both sides of the political spectrum and who could reach a useful accommodation with the rational members of the Democratic Party and return the federal government, and hence the entire country, to some semblance of functionality and stability.

Good Gravy! That’s just crazy talk right there!

“And it’s not because there’s an anti-homosexual mood, and nobody’s homophobic that I know of, but many of us, and I consider myself included, base our standards not on the latest Washington Post poll, but on an objective standard, not a subjective standard.”

Well, I suppose it’s good that he’s not in an anti-homosexual mood (question: does that mean Huckabee is in the mood for a little homosexual? What, I’m just asking. He is a conservative evangelical minister after all. But I digress).

It’s patently obvious that Huckabee doesn’t know what the word “homophobic” actually means.

He certainly doesn’t know the definition of “objective.” 

He’s one of those people who vehemently deny that they’re bigots because they pretty their hatred up and disguise it behind a thin veneer of Jesus.

People like Mike Huckabee preach ad nauseum about the supposed failings of others and yet somehow always end up offended and outraged when they’re called out on their own bullshit.  As I recall there is a paragraph or two regarding a mote, an eye, and a beam in Mike Huckabee’s holy book, but then again that’s for other people, us I guess, not evangelicals.

There’s a word for these people, that word is hypocrite. 

And hypocrites were condemned over and over and over in the Bible. I think gay people were mentioned roughly six times. Seems to me that if God was so het up over gayness, he a) wouldn’t have made so many of them, and b) he’d have been a bit more specific about it in his Big Book Of Rules.

Huckabee says that evangelicals don’t base their standards on the latest poll (given the results of the last election, I suspect he might want to rethink that) but, instead prefer to base their worldview on whatever arbitrary nonsense issues forth from the pulpit.

This, to Mike Huckabee, is a “standard.”

All of which is a good example, a damned good example, of why a degree in religion from a religious “college,” like the one Huckabee attended, shouldn’t be considered an actual education by any objective standard.

And it’s an even better example of why religion has no business whatsoever in the government of a free people. Period.

“I have great sympathy and extraordinary admiration for Sen. Portman. I consider him a friend and I value his work in the Senate and think he’s a great person. The mistake is that we sometimes base our public policy decisions on how we feel, how we think, maybe even some personal experiences, and we don’t regard a lot of these issues from the standpoint of an objective standard.”

I have great sympathy for Senator Portman, i.e. I’m sorry that your kid turned out all faggy and shit, you poor bastard. Tough break.

I think he’s a great guy, I have great admiration for him, except for that part where I’m about to tell you why I think he’s going to hell because instead of condemning and disowning his gay kid, Portman acted like an actual parent. Portman actually did unto others as he would have them do unto his own children. God hates that, you know. Hates it. That’s why he didn’t mention such things in the Bible. Right?

The mistake is that we sometimes base our public policy decisions on how we feel, how we think, maybe even some personal experiences … like when you put down the religion and actually get to know some gay people you find out that, well, geez, they’re actually people just like other people.

Portman’s switcheroo is an abject example of somebody who suddenly realizes they’re being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. If his kid didn’t come out as gay, he’d still be toeing the party line instead of behaving like a decent human being. The only thing Portman should get credit for is changing his position while still in office, instead of waiting until he was out of power – like Dick Cheney.

The primary difference between liberals and conservatives is this: circumstance.

It’s easy to be against universal healthcare, until you need it.  It’s easy to be against social safety nets, until you’re poor, or old, or unemployed. It’s easy to be for torture, until it’s your kid they’re strapping down on the table. 

It’s easy be against civil rights, until it’s your loved ones that are being discriminated against.

“Let me explain what I mean by that. If we have subjective standards, that means that we’re willing to move our standards based on the prevailing whims of culture.”

As opposed to what? The prevailing whims of your Bronze Age religion? As opposed to the prevailing whims of some random holy man who thinks that he has a right to impose his ideas on the rest of us? You mean like that?

You mean how Republicans changed their standards when they invited evangelicals into the party?

“Politicians have an obligation to be thermostats, not just thermometers. They’re not simply to reflect the temperature of the room, or the culture, as it were. They’re to set the standards for law, for what’s right, for what’s wrong, understanding that not everybody’s going to agree with it.”

How’s that again? Politicians set the standards for law?

Politicians determine what’s right, what’s wrong.

Politicians.

 

It’s just me, right?

No, really, it’s just me.

 

Five years of listening to this endless We The People horseshit from Conservatives, and now it’s politicians who get to determine right and wrong. Is that correct?

Honestly, can you people hear the words that are coming out of your mouths?

Mike Huckabee’s definition of “standards” seems to be more than a little arbitrary.

Again, this is damned good example of why religious extremist shouldn’t be in charge of anything. Period. 

In the United States of America, the standard for law is based on the Constitution. Period. Not the hatred and bigotry of some evangelical tent preacher, not some politician, and not the fickle whim of the mob.

“On this issue, I recognize the culture is moving away from the traditional standard, but it’s almost like saying, well, we have a basketball team and nobody on the team can hit the goal that’s 10 feet off the floor so we’re going to lower the goal down to six feet and that way everybody can slam dunk the ball.”

If we’re going to use a sports metaphor, lets us a real one: It’s like saying, well, we have a baseball team and we only allow white people to play. Black people have their own Negro League, see, and even though they supposedly have equal rights they must remain separate and even though they pay taxes that in part support the white leagues they can’t use our facilities or call themselves professional baseball players or enjoy the same pay and benefits as the white players. Because they’re black and for no other reason. And they should be happy with this arrangement because, hey, it’s our culture. Plus, Jesus hates black people, children of Hamm and all that, you know.

But, see, then the culture changed.

Of course, pious evangelical Christians just like Mike Huckabee strenuously objected to integration of baseball, and integration in general, too.

“So the question is, have you have improved your basketball game? Or have you actually just changed the standard so it looks like you’re doing better? And that’s my concern.”

You know, maybe I’m not being fair.  Let’s go ahead and use Mike Huckabee’s analogy, shall we? The one where only tall people should be allowed to play sports …

I’ve written extensively about same-sex marriage. From the humorous in Love and War (Uncle Sam needs you! Liberals declare war on traditional marriage. Bombing begins at dawn and its going to be fabulous) to the deadly serious Uncivil Righteousness of Michele Bachmann. 

I have repeatedly asked the same question:

If gay people are given the right to get married, and the right to call it marriage, and thus receive all the benefits of married couples under the law, how does that affect anybody else’s right to engage in the traditional marriage of one man and one woman? How in any way whatsoever are you denied any rights that you, as heterosexuals, currently enjoy? How? You may acknowledge “culture” and “tradition,” but you don’t get to use them as a get out of jail free card. You may not use religion to support your answer. You may not use “I don’t like it” or any other form of subjective bigotry. You may only use the Constitution of the United States to justify your answer. Cite the Article and Paragraph.  Please be specific.

Well?

Here’s the bottom line, culture changes. Nations change. People change. Traditions are discarded, new ones are created. The men who wrote the Constitution knew that, they didn’t try to prevent it, they planned for it, they built it into the very fabric of the country.

If they hadn’t we would still have slavery – something else that has been a cultural tradition longer than it hasn’t.

When it comes to marriage equality, just like with slavery and civil rights and women’s suffrage, the writing is on the wall – and just like with all of those things, Mike Huckabee and the evangelical bigots remain firmly on the wrong side of history.  It’s their culture and tradition to be so.

Evangelicals are threatening to leave if the Republican Party drops its formal objection to marriage equality?

Good.

Good riddance.

The single best thing that the GOP could possibly do for itself, for the nation, for all Americans, is to rid itself of Mike Huckabee and the rest of the evangelicals who hide their small-minded fear and hate behind Jesus’ smiling bearded face.

Let them go form a third party.

See how they like being a dis-enfranchised minority for a change.