Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee
compared gay marriage to polygamy Tuesday.
Appearing on CBS
News' webshow @katiecouric, Huckabee told Katie Couric that if
you alter marriage to include gay couples “then there is really no
limit” to how it might be defined and suggested polygamy would soon
follow.
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister,
also does not believe gays should be allowed to serve in the military
and supports a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a
heterosexual union. He is the presidential choice of social
conservatives who attended this year's Value Voters Summit, the
annual conservative meet up sponsored by the Family Research Council
(FRC), an ardent opponent of gay and lesbian rights. Surprisingly,
former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential
candidate Sarah Palin trailed in fourth place.
While conceding that children raised in
single parent households could grow up to be “healthy and strong,”
he insisted that children are “best developed when they see healthy
male and female figures,” then added, “children need a mom and a
dad to give them that balance.”
Hucakabee, who appeared on the program
to promote his new book A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories that
Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit, said that he does not oppose
gay marriage but is in favor of traditional marriage.
“Can we change it to multiple
spouses?” he rhetorically asked. “If not, why not? You know, I
hear people say, 'Well, what would be wrong?' What would be wrong,
then, with a man having two or three or six or seven wives? Or a
woman having six or seven husbands all at the same time?”
“If enough people believe that we
should have – I'll just use the illustration of polygamy – then
we should accommodate that. Otherwise, are we being just as bigoted
and intolerant and lacking compassion 'cause we don't promote and
accept and put a sanction on polygamy?” he asked. “I don't think
so.”