Copied from my LJ

I wrote this in my LJ, but I thought it would be just as relevant over here. Basically, Mike Huckabee is an ass. Here's why:

First read on the DailyKos (which is turning out to be my new favorite blog), Mike Huckabee replied in an interview for GQ that gay marriage would end the world as we know it. And he'd feel fine, apparently.

Let's take a look at the question and his initial response:

(GQ) Is the strategy shifting because social conservatives are losing on those core issues? Ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable to have gay marriage even in liberal Massachusetts. Now it’s there.

(MH) I don’t think the issue’s about being against gay marriage. It’s about being for traditional marriage and articulating the reason that’s important. You have to have a basic family structure. There’s never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived. So there is a sense in which, you know, it’s one thing to say if people want to live a different way, that’s their business. But when you want to redefine what family means or what marriage means, then that’s an issue that should require some serious and significant debate in the public square. And if you look at states that have had it on the ballot—I know in our state it was a 70-percent-against issue. Most states are similar to that.

Ok, what? I won't list all the different ways "marriage" has been rewritten over the past umpteen centuries; DailyKos does a good job of that. But I'm pretty sure this next quote seals the deal in my feeling that Mike Huckabee is truly and undoubtedly a complete ass:

(GQ) I just wonder what you’d say to the gay couple who says, “Well, we want to live this way, and my partner can’t come visit me in a nursing home.”

(MH) He can with a power of attorney. That’s the fallacy, that this requires some new definition of marriage. It’s simply not the case.

First, I love how he automatically assumes the gay couple in question is male. That is just irritating on its own.

I would love to take Mike into the real world and show him that a power of attorney does NOT guarantee anything to a gay person if they're partner is deceased. How is it fair that a couple who has been together for a significant period of time has to jump through unbelievable amounts of legal hoops and court systems to protect themselves (not to mention the amount of money it takes to do that) when Britney Spears can have all 1100 legal protections handed to her in a fly-by-night Vegas marriage?

People like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney scare me, because they are the fear mongers that perpetuate stereotypes and ignorance in the American people and make it harder for people like me and Julie and all of our friends to be accepted in society.

It's erfing ridiculous.

My friend A responded over in my lj with a link to this, a fantabulous opinion in the NY Times about just how much "marriage" has evolved over the past few centuries. It's truly fascinating to think that today, with all of the information floating around out there, that there are still ignorant people like Mike Hickabee who still see the world as flat.

Hopefully by the time our potential children are old enough to understand they won't have as tough a battle to fight as we do.