Headline Paints Huckabee as Homophobe Over His Views on Same-Sex Marriage

What happens when a conservative politician makes a reasonable and legally sound argument challenging the push for same-sex marriage?  His words are twisted to make him look like a hateful bigot, thus setting off a media ruckus.  That’s the case in this article from AP with the headline:

Huckabee likens gay marriage to incest, polygamy

Did Huckabee really make that connection?

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee appeared at the College of New Jersey to speak to the Student Government Association.  While there he granted an interview to the student newspaper, The Perspective.  The student reporter challenged Huckabee on his position on same-sex marriage,  and according to the AP:

Huckabee told the interviewer that not every group’s interests deserve to be accommodated, if their lifestyle is outside of what he called “the ideal.”

“That would be like saying, well there’s there are a lot of people who like to use drugs so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, should we accommodate them?” he said, according to a transcript of the interview.

The 2008 presidential hopeful and former Arkansas governor also said that deciding which lifestyles should be accommodated and which ones should not creates a slippery slope.

“Why do you get to choose that two men are OK but one man and three women aren’t OK?” he asked.

This is a reasonable and logic based argument that the proponents of same-sex marriage must address rather than just screaming “You’re saying being gay is the same as incest!”  No, Huckabee is not saying that.

Read the rest here.