Huckabee: Bleatin' Good in the Neighborhood

Lately I'd begun to worry that the victory of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party would bring an end to the sort of right-wing rhetorical shamelessness we've come to depend on for amusement and diversion.

I feared -- silly me -- that the thought-buffoons of the right would either skulk back into the shadows from which they had emerged, never to be heard from again, for a while; or, alternatively, admit their error, make suitable acts of contrition, and go forth to display unbelievable intellectual dishonesty no more. Our national discourse would be healthier, yes, but our national laugh-life would suffer.

How wrong we can be. Here, from barely a week ago, is Mike Huckabee (universally lauded as "America's Relatively Sane Religious Nut") claiming to fellow-blowhard William "The Gambler" Bennett that California's Proposition 8 "did not ban gay marriage."

To something like that, the usual rejoinders ("Nonsense!" "Sophistry!" "Bullshit!") just won't do. As the Think Progress site which hosts the clip shows, the ballot text itself denominates the measure with the not-that-ambiguous words "ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME-SEX COUPLES TO MARRY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT."

But the Huckster has his own take on it. "I refuse to use the term, 'ban same-sex marriage,'" he announces in tones of sturdy defiance -- the same ones that many of our top Republicans use to ward off reality. "That's not what those efforts did. They affirmed what is. They did not prohibit something. They simply affirmed that which already has and forever has existed."

Will you be shocked to learn that Bill Bennett can be heard chirping what sounds like approval and agreement? Me, neither.

Parody-wise, this kind of fingers-in-ears/nyah-nyah/I'm-not-listening makes its own gravy. Still, it's worth a try. Thus, when Huckabee says that a law that explicitly prohibits X does not prohibit X, but instead "affirms" anti-X, it's like saying that the Volstead Act affirmed traditional standards of sobriety, or that the proscription against murder (from the world-famous Ten Commandments) does not so much ban killing as it affirms traditional modes of being alive.

This "affirmation" scam is not only technically inaccurate (given the title of the measure), but it's logically dishonest and therefore morally debased. It is one thing to affirm that marriage "has and forever has been" between a man and a woman. No one would argue with that. And, having agreed with it, those in favor of gay marriage would add, "...although this state of affairs has and forever has been unfair and discriminatory. This is something we now propose to remedy. We want to expand the possibilities of marriage to include other members of society."

But Huckabee and others who oppose gay marriage aren't interested in historical observations of customary behaviors. (And you don't need a state constitutional amendment to take note of them.) The good, decent folks who voted Yes on Eight do in fact want to institute a ban. How do we know? Because the law says so, in so many words.

One wonders why Huckabee bothers, then, with this silly and easily-refuted claim. Why not tell the world that traditional Christianity is openly hostile to homosexuals and adamantly opposes their right to marry?

For the same reason that prompted the first half of Huckabee's (likewise bogus) quote, the one that goes, "The very people who voted for Barack Obama in California...also voted to sustain traditional marriage." (Yes, "sustain." As though gays getting married would, through some unexplained Bad Gay Juju, "destroy" traditional marriage. This idea doesn't really stand up to rational consideration, but then, neither does much else about traditional religion. So let's not "go there.")

It seems to make superficial sense: Obama won, Prop 8 won, so they both must have been supported by the same people. Huckabee would have us believe that it's Democratic and even liberal to ban gay marriage, although of course it's not a question of "banning" so much as affirming that not-having-it is traditional, and so not-having-it should be enshrined in the state's constitution.

Except that his reading of the Yes on Eight votes is wrong. As wunderkind poll star Nate Silver says at fivethirtyeight.com:

Certainly, the No on 8 folks might have done a better job of outreach to California's black and Latino communities. But the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters -- the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) -- voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.

So: blatantly dishonest on "ban," and a font of disinformation on the voters, to Bill Bennett on the radio. Why?

Huckabee, we recall fondly, ran for president. We are led to believe that he intends to run again. He must surely be wondering, Why look for trouble? Why risk alienating voters when you don't have to? Why be all negative-y and bigot-ish and against something, when you can just as easily be for its absence?

O those Republican pols: they've still Got It. From Kristol to Noonan to Brooks, from Romney to Giuliani to Huckabee: they will always be with us, and so will their deadpan disingenuousness, their cheery demagoguery, their pseudo-expert revisionism, their special pleading, their myths, their p.r., their fantasies, their lies.

Obama hasn't even been inaugurated, and the campaign for 2012 has begun. As Dominick Dunne said when O.J. Simpson announced that he would spend the rest of his life searching for his wife's real killer: Let's watch!

Crossposted at What HE Said.

Comments

[daffey]

Sorry, there is too much of "that idiot"s mean because he called me stupid" in this piece. It starts out with "why Huckabee is wrong", but quickly is reduced to preaching to the choir by basically saying "he"s wrong because he doesn"t see it my way." Plus, too much space is taken slamming, digging, and outright insulting the man, that could have been spent building a more solid case. Which illustrates the greater problem in the gay rights movement today. After all, the million dollar question is why, when so many 'conservative' issues were defeated, and so many 'conservative' politicians exited stage right, did so many initiatives against gay marriage - if not gay rights in general - succeed? It wasn't like the country was bathing in a right wing tidal wave this November. Why? My guess is because of the type of manner and tone exhibited by this article (and others). The 'you're a stupid homophobe, and I don't care what you think, now give me my rights' is about as effective as going into a job interview and telling the boss that he or she is an idiot and a dolt for not having already hired me, so give me my job. It"s always safe to preach to the choir, but seldom effective. My suggestion: try a different strategy, and strike a different tone.

[historyrepeating2]

The logic of the argument was called into question and how political hacks twist the story, and that's all. Resist the trap. Your reply was exactly what was "engineered" into this speech by one of the masters of spin.

[carsntrucks]

I totally agree.

[Johnathan Wilber - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't get the impression at all that Mr. Weiner is insulting Mike Huckabee, let alone "slamming" or "digging" him. He's making a (very valid) point about the way the Huckabee, and many, many proponents of Prop 8, are manipulating the political language.

What Huckabee et al are doing is no different than the kind of Newspeak garbledy-gook that George Orwell described in 1984. It's like saying "double-plus ungood" instead of "awful." It's dishonest.

And to say that Prop 8 succeeded in California because gay-marriage advocates are decrying homophobes is a gross oversimplification, and the job-interview analogy seems even more incongruous. Gays wishing to get married are in no way politely asking for the country and states to offer them their rights. What kind of resume would we present in such a case? A perhaps more apt analogy in the case of Prop 8 would be that the gay couples were given a job and then told, "oops, we made a mistake... you're fired."

[MTGradwell]

'I don't get the impression at all that Mr. Weiner is insulting Mike Huckabee, let alone "slamming" or "digging" him.'

Er, what? "thought-buffoons" "skulk back into the shadows" "unbelievable intellectual dishonesty" "Religious Nut" " blowhard" "Bullshit!" "morally debased" "silly" "blatantly dishonest" "a font of disinformation" "negative-y and bigot-ish" etc., etc.is not insulting?

It would be one thing to argue that these insults are fully deserved, and I could understand that, though the case Mr. Weiner makes for saying that Huckabee deserves to be insulted in this way is fundamentally flawed ("Huckabee says that a law that explicitly prohibits X does not prohibit X", when in fact the law in question does not **explicitly** prohibit anything, and doesn't **explicitly** even mention X). It's quite another thing to say that these phrases aren't insults, or aren't intended as such. Perhaps you think that there is no such thing as an insult?

[carsntrucks]

How would that analogy be congruous? The courts (with no input from the citizens) gave same-sex couples the right to marry. Obviously the citizens didn't believe in that right, because they voted against it twice.

[MTGradwell]

The heading on the ballot form is not the proposition itself. Neither is the "summary" the proposition itself. (And incidentally, what's up with a "summary" that's more complicated than the thing it purports to summarize?) Proposition 8 actually is

'This initiative measure is submitted to the people in accordance with the provisions of Article II, Section 8, of the California Constitution.
This initiative measure expressly amends the California Constitution by adding a section thereto; therefore, new provisions proposed to be added are printed in italic type to indicate that they are new.

SECTION 1. Title This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage Protection Act."

SECTION 2. Section 7.5 is added to Article I of the California Constitution, to read:

SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.'

That's it. The full text. No mention anywhere of same-sex couples, or of rights, or the elimination thereof. If the "summary" and title mention these things then it's no wonder that people were confused. The wording on the ballot was profoundly misleading, making a do-over essential, and I would expect the gay community in California to be profoundly grateful to Mr. Huckabee for pointing this out.

[Ellis Weiner - Huffpost Blogger]

If "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California," there is no need to mention same sex couples or the elimination of rights. The elimination of the right of same sex couples to wed is implicit. How are people confused? How is the wording profoundly misleading? I'd love a do-over, but how could this be clearer, short of adding, "This means you don't qualify, gay and lesbian couples"?

[LewDan]

Do you not know what the California constitution is? Its about the law. That's all. Not "valid or recognized" for purposes of the law. Doesn't mean no marriage exists. How can a nonexistent marriage not be recognized? Do you think there could be no marriages before the California constitution was enacted? If the Catholic church recognized a marriage but California didn't would there be no marriage? If California recognized a marriage and the church doesn't would there be no marriage.

Just what is so difficult about the concept that churches recognize marriages only for the purposes of their religion and have no legal authority? That the State recognizes marriages only for the purposes of the law and has no religious authority? And that neither State nor church recognition is REQUIRED for marriage?

I really don't get why you insist on falsely conflating marriage with the legal recognition and enforcement of marriage. People aren't confused. They are being lied to. By both sides of the issue. If anyone's confused its you.

[MTGradwell]

Proposition 8 doesn't mention minors either. Or robots. It makes no reference to polygamy. Nor are these things mentioned in the context of marriage anywhere else in the California constitution, as far as I can tell. The elimination of, say, the right of robots to marry, is just as implicit in proposition 8 as the elimination of the right of homosexuals to marry, IF you accept that in both cases the right formerly existed. Huckabee would presumably argue that it did not - that marriage has always been between a man and a woman and not, say, between a robot and a flower-pot, or between ten men and ten women, or between one man and another man. In fact I have read of him making just such an argument, but I believe he made the mistake of mentioning non-human species, allowing his opponents to accuse him of equating homosexuality with bestiality, which I doubt was his intention.

How is the wording misleading? I could count the ways, but I'd lose count. For starters, the "impartial analysis" says "individuals of the same sex would not have the right to marry in California", as if only marriages taking place in California are affected, rather than marriages which took place anywhere, at any time, without limitation. That point alone is enough to merit a do-over. But it's better to take up Huckabee's points because then, if there is a do over, you can give credit where it is due.

[carsntrucks]

It's been a rallying cry of the No on 8 campaign that the Yes on 8 campaign spread lies and falsehoods about Prop 8.

Why engage in similar tactics, Mr. Weiner?

You know the proponents of Prop 8 wanted the amendment to be called "Limits on Marriage" and petitioned to have it kept that way when Attorney General Jerry Brown, who did not support Prop 8's passage, changed it to "Eliminates the Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry".

Perhaps Huckabee is only guilty of refusing to see the issue the way it's being spun by those who are upset that it passed? Perhaps his view is more in line with how most people who ran the Yes on 8 campaign and those who voted for it.

[Dan4Equality]

In reality, lgbt people had the right to marry in California, prop 8 passed, now they don't. That is why we use the word "banned".

[Johnathan Wilber - Huffpost Blogger]

And yet, the word "only" in the amendment does implicitly ban gay marriage. It's ludicrous to argue that Prop 8 would have come about had gay couples not been allowed to marry. What else would the "only" be excluding? Dogs? Ovaltine? KitchenAids? I say we cross the Ovaltine-man marriage bridge when we come to it.

It's a softer wording. It makes everything a bit more palatable. Those who denied the gay couples their rights can sleep easier.

[leatherneck1971]

If one wishes to know about Huckabee, all one has to do is listen to Neal Boortz the self proclaimed radio talk show host on 104.1 FM, Huckabee called into his show and they were so busy scratching each others backs with praises, one would have thought they were a potential love match! Boortz is the infamous radio host whom is advocating re-establishment of the jim crow education test laws of the outlawed 1960's, he claims the US constitution does not guarantee anyone the right to vote, he likens voting to like a priveledge as if a drivers license and a test ought to be given! He also bills himself on his web page as "Mightey Whitey", as well if one listens to him, he uses this phrase often on his on airwave show. Ironic he rants and raves about re-distribution of wealth, welfare, and he is a benefactor of public airwaves monoply by him and his fellows on 104.1 FM, Ingraham, Hannity, Oreilly, Justice, Savage, do these right wing hatemongers sound like birds of a feather do flock together, and ad the fan base of Huckabee to their fans!

[MTGradwell]

"He claims the US constitution does not guarantee anyone the right to vote".

As a point of fact, the US constitution does not guarantee anyone the right to vote.

Amendment 17 says "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude", and amendment 19 says the same about sex, and 26 says the same about age, provided you're 18 or older. But anybody can have their right to vote denied or abridged, provided the reason for the denial or abridgment isn't one of those specifically covered by these amendments. For instance, in Florida your right to vote can be denied because you share your name with a convicted felon who lives several states away. This may be wrong, but it's not unconstitutional. It wouldn't even be unconstitutional to bar you from voting because it is suspected that you intend to vote for the "wrong" candidate.

[markinaz]

Huck & co. have to keep beating up on the gay community because they have nothing else to offer the GOP base. They know banning abortion is pretty much a lost cause-especially when most polls show majority support for it in some form. Hey, beat up the gays, they're small enough of an unpopular minority to not put up much of a fight. Nobody likes them anyway, so lets take the easy route to pleasing our peers.

[aftershock]

"It is one thing to affirm that marriage "has and forever has been" between a man and a woman. No one would argue with that."

Actually, many people would argue with that. Marriage has been altered numerous times throughout the course of history, and the Huckster (like his "evangelical" associates) fails to mention that the Biblical interpretation for marriage allows men to have multiple wives. Nowhere is it prohibited, and there are multiple examples showing it's practice in both the New and Old Testament. Paul called marriage a necessity due to inherent immorality, he didn't even think anyone should be married, and Paul is considered by most in the Christian faith to be the foundation of their faiths customs (even though the man never met Christ and perverted his teachings BADLY). Therefore, it cannot be said that marriage "forever has been between a man and a woman." It forever has been what man decided it should be.

[Ellis Weiner - Huffpost Blogger]

Good points. I sit corrected.

[Overd0g]

Good grief, who would want more than one wife!

[aftershock]

Well considering the rate of adultery in America... I'd suppose quite a few people.

[LewDan]

Amazing... I wouldn't have thought ANYONE could find something Huckabee believed that was true -- and yet you managed to. Prop 8 didn't ban marriage, it did restore the status quo.

Marriage is an agreement, a contract, between at least 2 people. It doesn't require religious sanction, although its traditional, doesn't require government authorization, although licensing and registration are generally required for enforcement. Nothing in Prop 8 prevents anyone from marrying. There're no fines, no penalties, no prison terms, NOTHING to deter anyone from marrying. How can you have a ban without enforcement? Polygamy is banned, it will get you jailed -- gay marriage? -- Bupkis...

Prop 8 isn't about civil rights. No rights have been taken or infringed. Prop 8 isn't about what GBLTs can do, its about what everyone ELSE must do. About government providing spousal benefits, hospitals granting visitation, employers paying pensions... There's no "civil right" to force others to do what you want.

Black people fought for THEIR right to act, free of coercion, not to force anyone ELSE to do something. The professed inability of Prop 8 opponents to see the distinction is offensive, and not credible.

Prop 8 isn't about marriage, its about discrimination, about official recognition of SOME marriages and disavowal of others for no other reason than like or dislike of the parties. Its unfair and unconstitutional, but if opponents argued it pre-election the way they argue post-election I can see how it passed -- When all else fails, try telling the

[Ellis Weiner - Huffpost Blogger]

"Black people fought for THEIR right to act, free of coercion, not to force anyone ELSE to do something. "

Not to force restaurant owners to give them service rather than ban them? Not to force bus drivers and white riders to let them ride in whatever seat they wish? Not to force white school principals and deans to admit black children to schools and colleges?

"Free of coercion" isn't the point. White people had to alter their behavior, by force of law if necessary.

[LewDan]

Yes, not to force any of those things. Restaurants can STILL refuse service to anyone they choose. If we're not to ride the buses or attend the schools then why must we pay the fares and taxes for them?

When we pay for something, then yes, we're entitled to it. The same as anyone else. No one was forced to take our money. When the transit systems and schools did that THEN they owed us service. The only behavior white people had to alter was their exploitation of black people.

Nice try. Lame, but nice try.

[Openeyes]

This is supposed to be sarcasm right? Did you miss the entire article explaining how the Proposition BANS gay marriage? Prop 8 prevents same sex marriages, so how can you say it doesn't prevent anyone from getting married?

"Black people fought for THEIR right to act, free of coercion, not to force anyone ELSE to do something."

I guess you missed the part of the civil rights movement about allowing blacks to go to schools, restaurants, lodging, housing, gain employment with, and be married to, whites - sounds like someone had to "do something" in those situations..

[LewDan]

I guess YOU missed the part where I clearly explained Prop 8 doesn't ban gay marriage. Just because the "ballet text" was cited doesn't make the claim a fact. Drivers refusing black riders who'd paid fares because of where they sat is a contract dispute, fraud and theft.

When the VICTIMS of that fraud and theft were arrested and incarcerated in order to intimidate and coerce other blacks into submitting to the victimization, THAT was when civil rights were violated. Blacks were "forced" to sit in the back of the bus. Forced as in arrested, incarcerated, beaten, shot, and LYNCHED if they didn't.

Yes whites had to change. Because in ADDITION to our civil rights being protected (as in no more coercion,) THE LAW was also finally actually enforced. Such as the laws against fraud, theft, and assault. So yes, white people had to STOP robbing, cheating, intimidating, abusing, and murdering black people. They were not forced to do anything FOR black people beyond occasional basic restitution, such as school desegregation.

If your seriously trying to argue that its somehow unfair to stop someone from assaulting you I recommend you to the famous Supreme Court quote, "you're right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.":

[oafishcad]

Banning Gay marriage is religious intolerance.

[Overd0g]

Gay marriage can only exist when the participants can prove they are gay.

[aftershock]

Asinine.

[shadowgm]

Ignorance is strength.
Slavery is freedom.
War is peace.

When did God become an acronym for George Orwellian Dude?

[kpod]

"unexplained Bad Gay Juju" -- proof that our national laugh-life is not suffering!

[robivecchi]

Maybe Huckabee and everyone else should actually read a little history, and I don't mean the fiction in modern the Bible. Same-sex marriage existed at various times in ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, China, Japan and among Indigenous groups in the Americas and Oceania.

[LREKing]

Well, I'm sure they didn't so much exist as fail to not exist.

If you get my meaning.

PS: Really enjoyed Howard the Duck adaptation.

[Ellis Weiner - Huffpost Blogger]

So you're the one. (Thx.)