Americans love a rebel. Whether it's George Washington or Elvis Presley, we have a fixation with rabble rousers. Perhaps this explains the popularity of Republican candidate Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee sticks it to the man. While the other Republican candidates are as enthralled with the ultra-wealthy as the Bush administration, Huckabee talks about poverty and calls the pro-business Club for Growth the "Club for Greed." He even won praise from arch-liberal columnist David Sirota.
Huckabee's history, however, shows him to be anything but Che Guevara.
Washington Post columnist Robert Novak wrote that Huckabee attended a Dec. 18 fundraiser at the Houston home of Steven Hotze, a prominent figure in Reconstructionism, an obscure but influential Christian political movement started by the late R.J. Rushdoony in the 1960s. Reconstructionists take religious right ideology to the extreme, seeking to turn the U.S. into a theocracy governed according to Old Testament law, complete with stoning of adulterers and execution of homosexuals. Imagine a Christian version of Iran, and you've got the idea of what the Reconstructionists want for this country.
"The seats of our civil government must be filled by men who fear God and who are willing to sacrifice to obey his commandments and administrate his laws, no matter the personal cost," Hotze said in a 1990 audio clip.
Huckabee's ties to Reconstructionists don't stop with Hotze's fundraiser. In 1998, he co-wrote the book "Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence" with another Reconstructionist, George Grant.
According to Mother Jones magazine, Huckabee wrote in the 1998 book, "It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations-from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia." He has also refused to retract a 1992 statement he made to the Associated Press in which he called homosexuality "an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle."
In 1987, Grant wrote a book titled "The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action." In that book, Grant wrote, "[I]t is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish."
Aside from Novak's column, a post on the libertarian Cato Institute's Web site and a few blog entries, Huckabee's ties to Reconstructionists have largely escaped scrutiny.
Can you imagine the outrage Huckabee would invite if he had attended a fundraiser at the home of a neo-Nazi? What if he had co-written a book with a KKK member?
Most Americans have probably never heard of Reconstructionism, and the movement is unlikely to be successful in its goal of Christian theocracy. Still, anyone with even the slightest respect for democratic and pluralistic values should find Huckabee's connections with members of an extremist political movement profoundly disturbing, especially in light of some of his personal views.
Just as many people are willing to overlook Ron Paul's enthusiasm for the economics of the robber baron era because he opposes the Iraq war, others go gaga over Huckabee because of his talk of social justice, despite his troubling views and associations. That's hardly better than supporting a candidate because he seems like someone whom you'd invite to your barbecue.
Huckabee is more than welcome to hang out with antidemocratic clericalists and have an obvious and manifest contempt for gays, but voters should keep him as far as possible from the White House, and maybe throw in an ankle monitor to be safe.
Write to Alaric at ajdearment@bsu.edu
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
