Huckabee Okay with Civil Unions?

I read a second-hand report a few weeks ago that while Mike Huckabee opposed homosexual "marriage, he was open to "civil unions" (which is simply homosexual "marriage" under another name). I wanted to trace it back to the source before I posted anything. Well, now I've walked the cat all the way back to the source.

It seems when Huckabee started getting asked about this recently, he at first said this wasn't true.

Here is what he recently told OneNewsNow:

Huckabee, however, says the Monitor report was inaccurate and he does not support "legal recognition of alternative unions."

In a statement provided to OneNewsNow, Huckabee says: "I strongly, firmly and unequivocally believe that the traditional definition of marriage is for 'one man, one woman, for life.' That is why I worked hard in Arkansas to enact legislation at the state level to protect traditional marriage, and why I have vowed to work hard for federal language as president."

"While I believe that people have a right to decide how they live their personal lives," reads the statement, "they have to respect not changing the definition of marriage."

Apparently the original quote was in the Concord Monitor, a New Hampshire newspaper. A Nov. 18, 2007 article says they originally did the interview with Huckabee in August 2006.

When Huckabee was pressed directly about this Concord Monitor interview, he said he either misspoke or misunderstood the question.

Here's what the Nov 2007 article says about the 2006 interview:

We dug up the transcript. In the interview, the Monitor asked Huckabee about how his stance on gay marriage jibes with his view of federalism. Huckabee told us that he backs a federal marriage amendment. We followed up, asking Huckabee about civil unions.

"I would tend to leave that to the state, as long as they wanted to not call it a marriage. Now if they'd call it a marriage, then I'd have a problem with it, because again, you're redefining an institution, you're not simply allowing people to live," Huckabee said last August. "It's not my chosen lifestyle, cup of tea. But again, that's a whole different discussion than it would be to say we're going to just say you're going to, can have, a same-sex marriage. That's not a marriage. It may be civil union, it may be a same-sex relationship, or a contract."

If you're legally recognizing two people in a sexual relationship and affording them special legal privileges on that basis, regardless of what label you put on it, that sounds a whole lot like what we've known for thousands of years as "marriage." And to me, Huckabee's answer sounds like one of those convenient "state's rights" dodges politicians make when they don't want to come down solidly on an issue.

Just last year, South Dakota banned the concept of homosexual "marriage" via our state constitution with language which said "civil unions, domestic partnerships or other quasi-marital relationships." Apparently this law that we passed defined "civil unions" as being a "quasi-marital" relationship (for you liberals out there who are bereft of a dictionary, "quasi" is defined as "having some resemblance usually by possession of certain attributes", or in other words, something like the real thing, and it's also a term used multiple times throughout our legal and governmental system).

To me, this information seems to be in keeping with my belief that Huckabee is, theologically speaking, soft on righteousness, and hedges the tough questions in order to keep from sounding like one of those Bible-thumping homosexual-hating Christians.

Did Huckabee misspeak, or was he confused by the question? Read the quote and make up your mind for yourself.