We don't need to tell you what former Arkansas governor/current presidential contender Mike Huckabee thinks about equal rights for all regardless of sexual orientation, or about his hypocrisy when it comes to protecting fertilized eggs until they turn into actual humans and leave the womb.
But Wednesday morning on the MSNBC show Morning Joe, he outdid himself in self-contradiction in an attempt to defend his views on same-sex marriage and those of Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, whom conservatives are calling a hero because she denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Host Joe Scarborough reminded Huckabee that Jesus doesn't mention homosexuality once in the Bible (it was that creepy Leviticus chapter that did; it was written before Jesus' time). But Jesus did mention other things, including things of which Davis was guilty a few times over.
"In fact, he never mentioned homosexuality," Scarborough said. "There's a lot more condemnation for people like myself, who have been divorced, than there is condemnation for people who participate in the gay lifestyle."
Davis has reportedly divorced three times over.
Huckabee countered by saying Jesus was against The Gays because he didn't mention them in his explanation of marriage, which makes gay marriage way worse than getting a divorce or three even though Jesus explicitly condemned marriage.
"Homosexual marriage was not an issue in the first century," he said. "There was no push for homosexual marriage when Jesus was teaching. But what he did say was that a man shall leave his mother and father and the woman shall leave her home and the two shall become one flesh. He explicitly outlined what marriage is … So when people say Jesus didn't talk about same-sex marriage, he did by virtue of talking about what marriage is."
So, given that the Bible does say divorce is bad multiple times, asked cohost Mika Brzezinski, wouldn't it make much more sense for a judge to deny Davis a third or fourth marriage license if she sought one?
Of course not, Huckabee said, as his logic pivoted wildly.
"There's a difference between a marriage between a man and a woman and a marriage between two men or two women," he said. "What we're talking about is whether or not we can redefine marriage, not whether or not that a person can have more than one because the law clearly says what people can do. They can have a divorce, we have laws for that. We have laws for marriage and remarriage."
So, lemme get this straight: The Bible emphatically says you can't divorce, but secular law says you can divorce, so divorce is OK.
And the Bible doesn't really mention gay marriage other than in the bizarre chapter that says slavery is A-OK and kill your children if they curse you, and secular law now allows it (though it had previously been illegal), so gay marriage is bad.
Got it.
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2015.