The following piece was produced by Huffington Post's OffTheBus.
Shortly after GOP presidential hopeful Governor Mike Huckabee walked into a house party in Loudon, New Hampshire on Saturday he was asked whether he would commit to helping the UN reach its goal of 50 billion in AIDS funding by 2015.
Smiling, Huckabee replied he would need to look over the budget, and have to be fiscally responsible. A second questioner followed up, asking for clarification - would Huckabee's religious views get in the way of him supporting the methods of prevention that such money would support?
Huckabee, in a lengthy answer, replied that encouraging safe sex was
similar to encouraging people to not "drive as drunk" or telling domestic abusers to not hit "as hard":
"If we really are serious about stopping a problem, whether it's drunk driving...we don't say "Don't drive 'as drunk'?" ...This is an illogical thing that we apply to that one area that we don't
apply to any other area. And I'm open-minded to all the arguments, if someone can convince me a little reckless behavior is OK. Maybe that's the message. But it would seem to me that if we're consistent in saying reckless behavior is undesirable we should ask people to move their behavior to the standard and not move the standard to the behavior...We don't say that a little domestic violence is OK, just cut it down a little, just don't hit quite as hard. We say it's wrong."
The questioner said in an interview after the event that he was impressed with Huckabee's demeanor in answering the question (a similar question directed at Romney last week had been mocked) but very disappointed with the answer.
When is the GOP going to get real?
sex, but kids will likely end up having both,
I'm sure he means well with his campaign, but
what's the reality, here? How does he think
the world got to the point of having 6.6 billion
people in it? There must be something to the
whole sex thing, or people wouldn't do it as
much...I think if he's going to go after
anything this way, then he should focus on
the effects of promiscuity, unwed mothers,
and STD's. Forewarned is forearmed, and
when people, especially women, have the facts
then it's better for all concerned. The Churchies kind of tend to promote ignorance
as workable policy, the old 'go forth and
multiply' routine, but, back to the 6.6 billion
maybe it's time to update all of that permanently. Now, I don't expect the Catholics
to start handing out prophylactics on the
communion plate, but it probably wouldn't kill
them to have more open discussions about sex etc...either that, or encourage people to find
other hobbies...
I think I made it pretty clear that the context was AIDS (which is a pretty normal context for the phrase 'safe sex').
Maybe you are replying to a commenter and not the article?
In any case, yes, AIDS. And yes, Huckabee is giving the same lines from from the 1980s -- since it's not a perfect solution it's not a solution.
But the interesting thing is that his analogies give the lie to his argument. By choosing drunk driving and domestic violence, he ties sex to immoral behavior. Except that there's a wide and broad consensus on those issues -- whereas prohibitions against premarital or extramarital sex are generally tied to religious belief.
Don't get me wrong -- he's a master at muddling it. I admit standing there listening I almost fell under his spell. But then you realize he's answering the question as if everyone having extramarital and premarital sex has AIDS... it's incredibly convoluted as a moral view and as a public health view it's nonsensical.
I have a more detailed analysis here if you're still buying into his faulty logic:
http://www.bluehampshire.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2099
The core of it is this:
* Huckabee quickly veers towards discussing safe sex as if all people having safe sex are infected with AIDS, and therefore reckless.
* He notes the state doesn't encourage people to drive "less drunk" -- but in fact it does. Public policy recognizes insisting on a BAC of zero for drivers is unrealistic. Compromises like this are in fact the core of public policy.
* In his comparison of safe sex to encouraging a wife beater to hit a little "less hard" he engages is a telling category mistake. Spousal abuse is considered wrong by a overwhelming moral consensus which the state enforces against under penalty of law, whereas extramarital and premarital sex is....
Oh, wow. Yikes.
Huckabee is a Baptist and as far as I know they practice contraception if they want to. He probably has done so himself.
He was addressing the idea that it is not safe for people with AIDS to have sex. They will pass it on even if they use contraceptives. As he said, using contraceptives will cut it down, but not stop it.
As for his position on the age of the earth, He believes that it does not matter; God created it whenever. Pretty simple position. He thinks it was 6000 years ago but says it would not matter if it occurred much longer ago--God still created the earth.
His concept that the earth and mankind are in entropy, that is devolving rather than evolving, is a standard position of his faith, and I think it is obvious if you look that mankind is devolving.
You seem sincere, but your comments do not make sense. Condoms stop AIDS dissemination, period. It's wrong to say otherwise. The question was about funding for condoms and other safe sex programs, and he's basically saying he would not support them. How can you say that handing out condoms would not reduce the incidence of AIDS?
And it very much matters when the Earth was created. If Huckabee thinks it's 6000 years old, then he doesn't believe in evolution which means he doesn't believe in things like drug resistant bacteria, which develop through the "magic" of evolution.
Science matters. We've seen where a President who doesn't care about it will take us.
Sublimating the sex drive isn't exactly a healthy thing psychologically. This is how we get the Larry Craigs and molesting priests.
Sexuality is a normal, healthy aspect of human life, and to deny one's sexuality just for "moral" reasons is about as useful as tits on a bull.
You can keep your decades of celibacy, the rest of us will be happy enjoying ourselves and our relationships like normal people.
Sexual shame was invented by Catholics to control society, later expanded upon by Freud for the same purpose. It's time to end it once and for all.
The completely idiotic abstinece ONLY teachings failed in 85% of Senior High School girls, they increase oral sex and anal sex 4 to 6 times, (anal sex is the highest RISK fo HIVAIDS and hepatits infections. They gutted 1/3rd of Ryan White AIDS funds with PROVEN medical and scientific proof they reduced new caes. Abortions have INREASED under the 7 years of Cheney/Bush, so not even safe vaginal sex is being taught, and they LIE about the protections a condom can provide.
That won't be enough next year. They'll all be history, including the Fundies. People are just sick of their hypocrisy.
You can stop drinking alcohol and you can get help for violent tendencies but you can only say no to sex for so long.
There is nothing wrong with educating people about the consequences of irresponsible sexual activity but it is foolish to expect large numbers of people from all different cultures to abandon sex. The hubris and self righteous intolerance it takes to demand that kind of policy so as to fit into a religious mold has no place in the oval office.