Every discussion of Mike Huckabee among media talking heads requires a mention of what a Nice, Likeable Guy he is. Why, he even wrote a book about how you should treat your neighbor the way you'd like to be treated! Which makes me wonder how he'd like us to treat him and his spouse, considering his attacks on GLBT people and our families.
He has referred to same-sex love as "an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle." In 1992, he said that people with HIV should be imprisoned. Well, actually the word he used was "isolated," but when you're being "isolated" against your will, it's called being imprisoned. He defended those comments as recently as 2007 (while adding that we "now know more" than we did then about how HIV is spread - but in reality, it was firmly established long before 1992 that HIV wasn't spread by casual contact). When news accounts mention Huckabee's statement at all, they continue to use the euphemism "isolated."
Then there was the 2008 interview where he equated same-sex marriage with marrying a child or an animal. He had to backpedal a tiny bit: he decided afterward that he only meant same-sex marriage was on the same "continuum." So, applying the Huckabee version of the Golden Rule, would it be ok to say that his marriage to Janet was on "continuum" with beastiality and child molesting? I'm thinking I wouldn't get much press for being "nice" if I tried that.
In his latest bit of hate propoganda, he compares same-sex relationships with drug abuse and incest. And because the Zoological Law of Wingnuttery requires every homophobic attack to shoehorn in an animal reference (preferably one involving dogs), he trashes GLBT parenting as an "experiment" that shouldn't be allowed because "children are not puppies."
I'm queer. I've raised a child. I've raised puppies. And I wouldn't let either of them near Mike Huckabee's idea of "nice."