Huckabee's Comments On Confederate Flag, Gay Marriage Draw Attention

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: Mike Huckabee

Looks like Mike Huckabee has the inside track on the pro-Confederate flag vote in South Carolina.

New radio ads airing in South Carolina during conservative talk shows praise Huckabee for calling disputes over the confederate flag an issue for the states, the Associated Press reports. South Carolina Republicans go to the polls Saturday.

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," Huckabee said in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Thursday. "In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole, that's what we'd do."

The radio ads, from Americans for the Preservation of American Culture, also take aim at John McCain – he has been "calling the flag a racist symbol for years," one spot says – and Mitt Romney, who said "that flag shouldn't be shown" in a debate.

Huckabee, by contrast, "understands that all the average guy with a Confederate flag on his pickup truck is saying is he's proud to be a Southerner," according to one ad. "Mike Huckabee understands we value our heritage and why."

The flag flap is not the only social issue Huckabee finds himself involved with: He is taking heat for comments he made to beliefnet about gay marriage this week.

"I think the radical view is to say that we're going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal," Huckabee said.

David Smith of the gay rights group the Human Rights Campaign told CNN that Huckabee is "equating a loving marriage between two people of the same sex with some form of bestiality. I think that's really out of the mainstream of American thought, and most people will find that offensive."

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
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by jbrewster7 January 19, 2008 9:35 PM EST: FACT: Mike Huckabee cannot unite social conservatives because he is a religious bigot that supports anti-catholic and anti-mormon sentiment (Source: Millennial Star, Huckabee''s Mormon problem, 12/04/07).; Reply to this comment


by beader59 January 19, 2008 9:07 PM EST: Also, to all of the haters that hve written here. Prove to me that gay marriages would ruin the institution of marriage that is already torn apart by around a 50% divorce rate. This is not the blame of homosexuals, or can you prove that?; Reply to this comment


by beader59 January 19, 2008 9:05 PM EST: FACT: Huckabee is a racist
FACT: Huckabee is a homophobe
FACT: Huckabee is a criminal
FACT: Huckabee is divisive
FACT: Huckabee wants a theocracy
FACT: Huckabee is dangerous
FACT: Huckabee will be bad for the United States; Reply to this comment


by prinzowhales January 19, 2008 7:36 PM EST: Vote fur Huck''!...or, he''ll kill yar dawg!; Reply to this comment


by allan_59 January 19, 2008 4:59 PM EST: Without a doubt, Huckabee is the most dishonest campaigner in either party. All the dirty tricks and lies that surrounded his campaigns in Arkansas have surfaced again in IA and SC.
Huckabee''''s only honest statement so far is that he "must have done something right" to be re-elected twice in a Democratic state. The "something right" that he did was running his office like a Democrat and his campaigns like a Clinton.; Reply to this comment


by rytinaradio January 19, 2008 5:09 AM EST: The first civil unions in the United States were offered by the state of Vermont in 2000. By the end of 2006, Connecticut and New Jersey had also enacted civil union laws; New Hampshire followed in 2007; furthermore, California''s domestic partnership law had been expanded to the point that it became practically a civil union law, too. The same might be said from 2007 for domestic partnership in Maine, domestic partnerships in District of Columbia, domestic partnership in Washington, and domestic partnership in Oregon (delayed because of federal judges).

GAY MARRIAGE RULES!!!; Reply to this comment


by marinepatriot January 19, 2008 2:18 AM EST: My vote is going on Mike Huckabee . We need an honest and moral man running this country for a change. Mike was named by Time Magazine as of the top 5 Governors in America. That was before he decided to run for President. A great decoration!

Mike is authentic and inspiring, making him the best leader I have ever known. He is the type of leader that naturally motivates his men to want to work their hardest , without even telling them to. People under Mike''s comand work their hardest because they love and respect this commander.

Mike Huckabee is the first candidate that I have ever had 100% trust and faith in. Please, go out and vote for him.

Dan Campbell
Sgt., USMC; Reply to this comment


by jbrewster7 January 18, 2008 11:00 PM EST: The fact is, Mike Huckabee is on the defense and wants to take the attention off of his liberal record as the governor of Arkansas.; Reply to this comment


by jbrewster7 January 18, 2008 10:59 PM EST: FACT: Mike Huckabee is an ordained evangelical baptist minister of the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention).(Source: Montanaro, Domenico; Lauren Appelbaum. "HUCK ON ''THEOLOGY'' DEGREE", MSNBC, 2007-12-14. Retrieved on 2007-12-16.)

FACT: The SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) was formed because of its decision to separate from other Baptists in defense of the institution of slavery.(Source: McBeth, H. Leon. The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness. Nashville: Broadman, 1987.)

FACT: It wasn''t until the Southern Baptist Convention of 1995 that it voted to adopt a resolution renouncing its racist roots and apologizing for its past defense of slavery.(Source: This Side of Heaven: Race, Ethnicity, and Christian Faith. Edited by Robert J. Priest and Alvaro L. Nieves. Oxford University Press, 2007, pp 275 and 339); Reply to this comment


by jbrewster7 January 18, 2008 10:58 PM EST: FACT: The ethics commission fined Huckabee $1,000 for failing to report that he paid himself $14,000 from his 1992 U.S. Senate campaign and $43,000 from his 1994 lieutenant governor''s campaign. (Source: POLITICO, Huckabee rivals unearth ethics complaints Kenneth P. Vogel Nov 21, 2007)

FACT: Huckabee accepted more than 300 gifts worth at least $130,000, ranging from $3,700 cowboy boots to a $600 chainsaw. (Source: POLITICO, Huckabee rivals unearth ethics complaints Kenneth P. Vogel Nov 21, 2007); Reply to this comment