Mike Huckabee’s (The GOP's) Hateful True Colors

Mike Huckabee - the man who admitted that he wanted to replace the U.S. Constitution with the Bible as America's "guiding governmental document" - remains popular with the insane, lunatic Christofascist base of the Republican Party.  He also forces other less mentally unhinged Republicans, especially would be potential 2016 presidential candidates to move to the LaLa land of the far right in order to court the ugly elements of the party base.  A piece in Salon looks at Huckabee's - and by extension, the GOP's - hateful true colors.  Here are excerpts:

During a recent radio appearance, former Arkansas governor and Fox News host Mike Huckabee continued his recent “police-women’s-behavior” tour, which in the past several weeks has most prominently featured his daring public criticisms of Beyoncé. On Friday, during an interview with Iowa-based radio show Mickelson in the Morning, Huckabee criticized the “trashy” women of Fox News who have the audacity to curse around the office.

I actually want to thank the Huckster for his candor here. When the Baptist minister-turned-politico first arrived on the national scene, he had a reputation for his general niceness — he was “easy to like” and there were plenty of “I Heart Huckabee” references to go around.

But even back in 2008 — way earlier than that, in fact! — Huckabee aligned himself with ideals that were fundamentalist at best and hateful and bigoted at worst (remember that 1992 Senate bid when he suggested AIDS patients be forcibly isolated, which he refused to renege during his 2008 presidential campaign?). His public image as a softy didn’t quite match with his assertions that homosexuality, for instance, is “an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle.”

In recent years, though, it feels as if we’ve gotten to know the real Huckabee hiding beneath his cultivated political persona, especially when it comes to his views on women. In 2011, he criticized actress Natalie Portman for the “unfortunate” way she managed “to glorify and glamorize the idea of out of wedlock children” while pregnant, a precursor to his recent outrage at Queen Bey; the following year, he labeled it a mistake for Republicans to jump ship when former Rep. Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape” were “blown out of proportion.” And 2014, of course, was nearly overflowing with Huckabee’s sexist wisdom: there was his response to the contraception mandate, in which he called out women for relying on “Uncle Sugar” to provide birth control because they “cannot control their libido,” . . . 

Now, Huckabee has taken it one step further by denigrating women — his own former colleagues — in as straightforward a way as one could muster. He has gone from seemingly kindhearted patriarch (maybe of the “agree to disagree” variety) to all-out grandpa-after-a-few-too-many-drinks in his sexist honesty. And, in a way, it’s a nice change of pace from the other wingnuts in Huckabee’s party who would have voters believe they aren’t garden-variety conservative loony tunes when, indeed, they are. 

And while we’ve known for some time that Huckabee’s views are, well, terrifying, they’d been masked in such a way that once set him apart. But now, the real Huckster — in all his sex-panicked, purity-centric, woman-policing glory — is who we get to deal with. At least we know exactly what we’re up against.

VIRGINIA: Anti-Gay Norfolk Circuit Clerk Files Appeal with Supreme Court

George E. Schaefer III - the face of anti-gay hate

One thing the local Hampton Roads gay community needs to do is come up with a plan to make sure George E. Schaefer III, the clerk of the Norfolk Circuit Court, is defeated the next time he runs for re-election.  If the region is to prosper and move forward in a changing world, the last thing we need is a raging bigot in charge of the circuit court of the area's largest city.  The same holds true in Prince William County where reportedly Michele McQuigg stands for re-election next year.  Typically, circuit court clerk elections are low profile, but these two individuals demonstrate what can happen when the wrong individuals hold these positions.  I stand ready to write campaign contribution checks to any credible candidates who challenge these douche bags.

In his filing yesterday seeking an appeal from the ruling of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, Schaefer argues that the lower federal courts have “subverted” the Supreme Court’s decision last year in United States v. Windsor.  If anything is perverted, its religious extremists and bigots like Schaefer and McQuigg who want to subvert the U.S. Constitution and inflict their poisonous religious beliefs on all Virginians (and who have perverted Christianity into something hideous).  Adding to the hypocrisy is the fact that Schaefer is represented by the former law firm of former governor Bob McDonnell now under federal corruption charges who has shown the true face of GOP family values. The following is Schaefer's basic claim:

Contrary to these mistaken decisions, the Fourteenth Amendment does not override “

state sovereign choices” about whether to adopt same sex marriage.

If this reasoning is correct, then Loving v. Virginia was wrongly decided and the bigotry of the majority can strip minorities of their civil rights as American citizens.  It goes without saying that Schaefer is a Republican. I always find it amazing who the opponents of gay marriage continue to make the same arguments as their segregationist forefathers.  I also have to question how their legal counsel can file such disingenuous arguments.    SCOTUS Blog has details on the filing:

Arguing that lower federal courts have “subverted” the Supreme Court’s decision last year on same-sex marriage, a Virginia court clerk on Friday filed his own petition – the second filing seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of that state’s ban on such marriages and the fourth on the basic constitutional issue.  The filing may complicate the Court’s chances of promptly considering that issue.

The new document was filed by lawyers for George E. Schaefer III, who is the circuit court clerk for the city of Norfolk.  He has been taking part in the Virginia case since it began, and he is now defending the ban, after state officials opted not to do so.  Already pending at the Court are another petition from Virginia, one from Utah, and one from Oklahoma.  Another is expected soon from Virginia, to be filed by a different clerk.


On Wednesday, the Court blocked the issuance of licenses for same-sex marriages in Virginia pending the filing of a petition by the other clerk who is defending the ban, Michele B. McQuigg of Prince William County.  Her petition is being prepared now by her lawyers, who may file it within the next week or so.

In the other two Virginia filings, one by the state attorney general and now by the Norfolk clerk, each claimed that it was the proper vehicle for the Court to review the validity of the Virginia ban.  But the two are on slightly different procedural timetables within the Court, and that will be true as well for the McQuigg petition when it is filed.

The Windsor decision “taught that state citizens are free to make up their own minds about this issue by exercising their ‘historic and essential authority to define the marital relation,’” the filing said, quoting from that ruling.

Perhaps someone should buy Schaefer a set of KKK robes since he in making a KKK like argument and applying it to gays.  Just a thought.  As I said, Schaefer needs to be challenged and defeated if he runs for reelection.