Mike's prominent mic: Queerty sorts through anti-gay noise

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02/13/2009

by Jeremy Hooper

Queerty's sending a morning warning to queer progressives. The subject? Mike Huckabee. The problem? The way the once-and-future GOP presidential hopeful hides some of his party's most heated anti-gay rhetoric behind a good ol' boy Arkansas mask.

Here's a snippet:

Homophobia is wrong in any guise, but Huckabee's stance – that being gay is a choice (or at least, as he puts it "engaging in homosexual acts is a choice") and that it's "an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle" – puts him in the same category as extremists like Fred Phelps, Focus on the Family and the American Family Association. Gays and lesbians can take comfort that through education and activism, many of these extremists have lost their political influence and have been marginalized.

If only we could say the same about Mike Huckabee, whose gay-hating, bigoted star continues to rise.
FULL: You Suck Huck: Why Mike Huckabee Needs to Be on the Gay Rights Radar [Queerty]

It's true -- a Fox News talk show and a nice Southern smile do not negate, humanize, or lend credibility to the throughly awful things that Huck has said about us over the years. He may not mean us personal animus. However, the words and themes are what really matter, and Mike's overarching tone has been reliably homo-hostile.

We have to be willing to connect the dots and show that while certain figures may be sweeter and their hearts not as intentionally hurtful, if their messaging undebatably puts gays in a fiery hell unless we "repent" of our "sinful" ways, then they are really fostering the same sort of biases and harms as the unabashed extremists. Michael Dale Huckabee deserves no pass.

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