Huckabee: Once You Change Marriage, There is "No Limit"

"Can we change it to multiple spouses?" he asked. "If not, why not? You know, I hear people say, 'Well, what would be wrong?' What would be wrong, then, with a man having two or three or six or seven wives? Or a woman having six or seven husbands all at the same time? Other than the financial challenge of doing that."

He then used what he called the "illustration of polygamy" to further argue the point.

"Are we being just as bigoted and intolerant and lacking compassion 'cause we don't promote and accept and put a sanction on polygamy?," he asked. "I don't think so."

Huckabee, who supports a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, told Couric that it's "not that I'm against gay marriage, it's that I'm for traditional marriage."

"Marriage doesn't mean any and everything we want it to mean," he said. "In all the recorded years of human history it has only meant one thing. It has meant a man and a woman relationship, that not only created the next generation, but that trained the next generation to be their replacements. It's not just the matter of the biological reproduction, however. It's the context in which children are able to grow up understanding the role models that both the male and the female provide."

He added that "it's not a matter of tolerance and good will."

"I don't think it has to be a personal point of anger," Huckabee told Couric. "I think it's a matter of do you think that marriage means what it has always meant? And if we do say we can change it then who gives anyone the right to change it?"

Huckabee is promoting a new book, "A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories that Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit." You can watch the entire, 40-minute conversation with Couric here, and watch the segment on marriage above.

More blog posts on the interview:

• Huckabee on Sarah Palin, Other GOP "Rock Stars"
• Huckabee: Obama Bow in Japan was "Offensive"

More video from the interview:

• Watch The Full Conversation
• Will Huckabee Run in 2012?
• Huckabee Prefers Palin Over Obama
• Huckabee Disagrees with Bailouts
• Huckabee's Beef with Health Care
• Huckabee Criticizes Obama for Bowing
• Who are the Next GOP Rock Stars?
• Huckabee on Obama's Vision