Huckabee Going Off the Rails
Mike Huckabee joins Mitt Romney on my personal list of candidates for whom I would not vote even if the only alternative is Hillary Clinton (in which case I’ll just sit home and complain). Why?
1. From ImmigrationProfBlog:
The formerly “soft on immigration” Republican presidential candidates continue their moves toward the enforcement-only end of the spectrum. The Washington Times reports that former Arkansas Gov. Mike (Huck) Huckabee yesterday signed a pledge to enforce immigration laws and to make all undocumented immigarnts go home. The pledge, offered by immigration control advocacy group Numbers USA, commits Huckabee to oppose a new path to citizenship for undocumentyed immigrants and to reduce the number in the country through “attrition” by increased enforcement — something Huckabee said he will achieve through his nine-point immigration plan (which, as we reported here, was “borrowed” from the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies.
Of course, if you read Huckabee’s plan, there’s nothing in there about the police state tactics that would be necessary to round up and send home 12 million people. So he’s decided to embrace an unachievable policy goal that will alienate the fastest growing segment of the voting population in hopes of pandering to the nativist right. On top of which, it almost certainly won’t work, see e.g. Michelle Malkin‘s shrill reaction:
He’s an open borders drag queen, and he’s piling on the make-up and jewels again to disguise his pro-illegal immigration record in time for the South Carolina primary.
2. Greg Sargent:
In an interview with Beliefnet.com, a religion Web site, Huck has just clarified his view that the Constitution should be amended to be brought in line with God’s will—and he directly equated homosexuality with bestiality.
Huck, in elaborating on his views that the Constitution should be subjected to Biblical standards, had just wrapped up a discussion of the fact that marriage has meant “a man and a woman in a relationship for life.” With this context firmly established, this exchange followed:
QUESTIONER: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.
HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. 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. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.
That’s pretty clear cut. Changing the definition of marriage so it can mean “two men” or “two women” is equivalent to changing it to mean “a man and an animal.” No ambiguity here whatsoever.
More generally, the idea that the Constitution should be subjected to Biblical standards smacks of Christian Reconstructionism, which is pretty damn scary. as Vox Nova wrote:
What does bother me, though, is (what seems to be) Gov. Huckabee’s close relationship with Steven Hotze, Rick Scarborough, and Vision America.
I’ve been pretty clear, I think, about my disdain for the tedious and ignorant “the theocrats are coming!” thing that is so popular in some circles. ... But, as I see it, Hotze, Scarborough, and Vision America really do have troubling and misguided views about faith and the political order. We’re not talking Fr. Neuhaus’s critique of the naked public square here, or John Courtney Murray’s We Hold These Truths.
Now, I’m confident (should I be, though?) that Gov. Huckabee’s own views are more thoughtful and sound than those of the so-called Christian Reconstructionists. But, can anyone doubt that, were Huckabee to be the nominee, these people and their views ... which would be, I’m confident, regarded as deeply creepy and troubling by most Americans — would be at the center of the campaign? (It would be political malpractice for Huckabee’s opponent, or opponents, not to exploit his connection with these people.)
I am, of course, pro-life and fairly conservative. I agree entirely with those who insist that religious faith has a role to play in politics and policy. I don’t see “theocracy” looming behind efforts to, say, protect unborn children from partial-birth abortions. But, I do worry about Vision America (not that they could actually achieve their aims, but that they will become associated in the public mind with *my* aims).
Also troubling to me - and, I hope, to other Catholics — is the fact that Gov. Huckabee apparently has no difficulty appearing with, and preaching at the church of, Pastor John Hagee, a virulent and ignorant anti-Catholic polemecist who has, to put it mildly, not yet got the word about “Evangelicals and Catholics Together.”
For those unfamiliar with Vision America and other Christian Reconstructionists, here’s what Father Richard John Neuhaus had to say about it:
Reconstructionism—sometimes called Theonomy or Dominion Theology—is a bastard form of Calvinism contending that the American constitutional order must be replaced by a new order based on “Bible Law.”
And, again:
Gary North says that theonomy “did not exist twenty years ago.” North, Greg Bahnsen, and Rousas J. Rushdoony are the chief architects of the movement, and the greatest of these is Rushdoony. Some date theonomy as a movement from the publication of Rushdoony’s Thy Kingdom Come in 1970. ...
For all the infighting and usually breathless announcements of new insights into “Bible law,” however, the basic proposals of Reconstructionism are clear enough. ... Most other Christians, for instance, are conventionally given to saying that the Bible contains “no blueprint for the right ordering of society.” That is precisely what the theonomists deny. In fact, one set of books is called “The Biblical Blueprint Series,” and it is nothing if not specific. The determining proposition is that the Mosaic law given at Sinai was not just for Israel but is God’s design for all nations of all times. In fact, Israel has been definitively “excommunicated” from the universal covenant. (Not incidentally, the usually strong Evangelical support for the State of Israel is very much called into question among those who have come under the influence of Reconstructionism.) As most of the proponents of this viewpoint do not hesitate to say, a theonomic social order is a theocratic social order, and a theocratic social order is a Christian social order. (Some theonomists prefer “Christocracy” to theocracy.)
Bible law requires a radical decentralization of government under the rule of the righteous. Private property rights, especially for the sake of the family, must be rigorously protected, with very limited interference by the state and the institutional church. Restitution, including voluntary slavery, should be an important element of the criminal justice system. A strong national defense should be maintained until the whole world is “reconstructed” (which may be a very long time). Capital punishment will be employed for almost all the capital crimes listed in the Old Testament, including adultery, homosexual acts, apostasy, incorrigibility of children (meaning late teenagers), and blasphemy, along with murder and kidnapping. There will be a cash, gold-based economy with limited or no debt. These are among the specifics broadly shared by people who associate themselves with the theonomic viewpoint. ...
Gary North has argued that death by stoning is a necessary part of the Mosaic code. He notes that stoning has a number of other things in its favor. Stones are plentiful and cheap, no single blow can be traced to any one thrower (thus reducing guilt feelings), group stone-throwing underscores collective responsibility for crime, and the practice usefully reminds us of God’s crushing the head of Satan, as mentioned in Genesis 3.
Stoning? Anyway, Neuhaus continues:
A reconstructed world ruled by future Rushdoonyites will not, needless to say, be democratic. Rushdoony is straightforward in condemning democracy as a “heresy.” ... Theonomists have suggested that, in a reconstructed world, there might be “sanctuaries” for non-theonomists, along the lines of Jewish ghettos in the middle ages. The prospect of such tolerance is not likely to relieve the anxieties of those deemed to be outside the circle of the righteous.
Do go read the whole thing, especially for its brilliant critique of the theological underpinnings of Reconstructionism.
In the interests of fairness, let’s point to a defense of Reconstructionism from a Rushdoony’s website. Personally, I find the defense itself pretty scary.
Just like Ron Paul needs to disavow the racists and whack jobs in his entourage, Huckabee needs to clarify his relationship with the Reconstructionsts. Right now.
3. Eugene Volokh points out that the Beliefnet interview demonstrates a lack of historical accuracy on Huckabee’s part:
From a Beliefnet interview:
And the same thing would be true of marriage. Marriage has historically, as long as there’s been human history, meant a man and a woman in a relationship for life. Once we change that definition, then where does it go from there?
Christians and modern Jews do not approve of polygamy, but surely anyone who believes in the Bible has to acknowledge that it attests to the widespread existence of marriage between a man and multiple women. (Nor is Huckabee just saying “a man and a woman” as a slip for “heterosexual”; immediately after this, he goes on to distinguish “a man and three women.")…
I had thought I’d made this clear in the original post, but let me repeat it: I’m objecting to Huckabee’s “historical[]” claims, and saying they’re inconsistent with the Bible’s own account of history. I am not responding to Huckabee’s moral claims; I am criticizing his attempt to buttress his moral claims with what strike me as factually unsound (and Biblically contradicted) assertions about what has been the case throughout “human history.”
Posted on Thursday, January 17 2008 | Permalink | 6 Comments
Not only would I sit out the election if Huckabee we
AI
