Think Pink Radio

*Huckabee being his crazy self

The 2008 presidential election is already in the forefront of our minds as we wait to see how each candidate will come down on important issues, especially issues which directly impact the LGBTQ community. For the first time in history our issues are really taking a powerful front in a presidential election: we even had the CNN/LOGO debate with democratic candidates who were specifically discussing topics important to our community.

The news has been filled with instances of presidential candidates being asked questions about the gay community. Amidst questions about repealing the discriminatory “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy, and gay marriage, the Associated Press broke the news about statements made in the early 1990’s by republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee regarding HIV/AIDS and the gay community.

“If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague” said Hukabee in 1992. The statement was part of a voluntary questionnaire sent to him by the AP while he was running for the Senate. Going further in his argument that people with AIDS should be isolated he said, “It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents.”

In that 1992 questionnaire Huckabee also wrote that “ I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk.”

–Sassafras Lowrey