Earlier today, a group of friends and I were discussing the Huckabee headline of the day.
A nice summary from Daily Kos:
In August of 1998, Huckabee was one of 131 signatories to a full page USA Today Ad which declared: “I affirm the statement on the family issued by the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention.” What was in the family statement from the SBC? “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.”
The rest of the SBC statement, Article XVIII, The Family:
She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.
(Note to self: Contact SBC Committee Chairman Adrian Rogers In Re: omission of “barefoot and pregnant” from Article XVIII.)
Present during this afternoon’s discussion of the new-found Holy Huck factoid were Ms. Whoosh, Ms. Moderate, Ms. Feminist, and myself, who cannot hold onto a good political label. They keep givin’ `em to me, and I keep losin’ `em.
Anyhow – Mrs. Whoosh’s thoughts on the matter were: “Isn’t he the guy who was fat at the beginning?”
Ms. Feminist was livid. She, who sports armpit hair in order to make an statement about gender equality (although I frequently encourage her to find a more attractive way to send the “All Boys can Bite Me” message – a nice t-shirt perhaps? It doesn’t have to be pink.) anyway, she seems to think if Mike Huckabee believes from a theological standpoint men are the God-appointed pants-wearers and bread-winners and women are the sandwich-serving helpmates: he cannot view them as his equals in any arena.
“There’s a vast difference between his religious and alleged political philosophy with no way to separate or reconcile the two. So, he’s lying about his politics.” she says.
Ms. Moderate agrees that Holy Huck’s beliefs would likely influence his executive decisions and he is, therefore, unfit to lead this great nation of heathens.
Personally, I don’t think the headline is worth getting my camouflage faux-feminist thong all twisted up in knots. I’m not offended by Huck’s endorsement the SBC’s statement of faith. As a Southern Baptist minister, he was expected to support the SBC. Any Baptist minister, who fails to do so, automatically gets struck by lightening, has their name written in the “Goin’ to Hell” book and/or will be banned from all future state conferences. It’s in the bylaws, I think.
And though his campaign has wisely declined to provide the press with copies of sermons he delivered during his 12 years in the pulpit (most were allegedly lost during a church remodel and others were probably eaten by the dog, which is fortunate otherwise, he’d have some `splaining to do) I don’t need the sermons to know what he deep-down believes:
Abortion = bad
Evolution = bad
Equality = popular in theory not practice
Promiscuity = bad
Polygamy = bad
Homosexuality = bad
Pornography = bad
Satan = bad
Madalyn Murray O’Hair = bad
Mormons, Muslims, Atheist, et al = all bad, (though I should point out that Southern Baptists are advised to deal with visiting heretics in an affable manner. Here’s how.)
Now – normally, if this were any ol’ Southern Baptist, I’d tell you this was no big deal. Having been raised amongst them, I happen to know most Southern Baptists are divinely blessed with the authority to alter, bend , twist or temporarily suspend religious beliefs if necessary (as Mr. Paul says: “if there’s something in the scripture that “don’t suit the Baptists, they’ll convene, eat, drink, initial the Good Book in four or five places and consider the whole thing amended.”) So, for most folks, this SBC “subservient woman” stuff is standard Baptist hooey, which men of faith support until their wives make them stop.
Mike Huckabee is a little different.
Huckabee is beyond religious. He is beyond faithful. I think he might be batshit crazy. As Governor of Arkansas, the man refused to sign a state disaster relief bill because it referred to a tornado as an “act of God.” (Huckabee held up funding for displaced, homeless people because if Arkansas couldn’t say something nice about God, then they shouldn’t say anything at all?)
Huckabee refused to authorize a $430 Medicaid payment for an abortion, which was to be performed on a developmentally-disabled 15-year-old, who’d been raped by a family member. Since incest and rape were included in the federal definition of “medically necessary,” a judge ruled that the payment was required by law. Nevertheless, Huckabee hung onto his state constitutional provision banning public financing of abortions except when a woman’s life is in danger – even at the risk of having his state (and all the sick, poor, elderly human life therein) deemed ineligible for Medicaid. The abortion was later performed but privately funded. Also noteworthy, Arkansas banned partial birth abortions over a decade ago. In 1997, the law was struck down today by a Federal magistrate judge who said the law was so broadly written that it effectively banned all abortions.
Huckabee now rejects the notion of letting states decide, claiming the right to life is a moral issue not subject to multiple interpretations.
“It’s the logic of the Civil War,” Huckabee said Sunday, comparing abortion rights to slavery. “If morality is the point here, and if it’s right or wrong, not just a political question, then you can’t have 50 different versions of what’s right and what’s wrong.”
Clearly, his version is the right one.
So, my honest opinion on the Huck headline? In consideration of Huck’s history, if you need a reason to doubt the guy, pick a better one.
Start here with the “Top 10 Moments in Mike Huckabee’s Extremism” or sift through Huck’s unique selection of “irrational and potentially harmful acts justified by religion.”
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