Huckabee: Gays Haven’t Experienced ‘True Discrimination’ Like Blacks Who Were Beaten Have

Listen as Mike Huckabee throws down tremendous insults to both the Black and LGBT communities today.

Leave it to Mike Huckabee to insult both the African-American and LGBT communities in one fell swoop.

The Republican presidential candidate and ordained Southern Baptist minister this morning told a local Baton Rouge radio station that equating same-sex marriage to civil rights is an insult to African Americans, and that same-sex marriage is not a civil right.

Huckabee told WJBO, “if you equate same-sex marriage to a civil right––” and then, interrupting himself, as Buzzfeed reported, Huckabee unleashed this embarrassing screed.

“First of all, what an insult to African-Americans, who were hosed in the street, who were beaten, who were truly discriminated against with separate restrooms, separate drinking fountains, separate entrances. That was true discrimination and it was horrible. It’s hard to say that the redefinition of marriage is on the same basis as was racial discrimination throughout our history.”

Of course, all people have civil rights, so Huckabee’s claim is embarrassingly false. What he likely was thinking about was the African-American Civil Rights Movement, not civil rights in general.

But let’s deconstruct Huckabee’s statement a bit.

LOOK: ‘Civil Or Biblical Disobedience?’: Huckabee Says Christians Have Just One Choice On Gay Marriage

First of all, marriage is a civil right, as stated by the U.S. Supreme Court fourteen times before Friday’s same-sex marriage ruling. 

So, perhaps Pastor Huckabee would like to brush up on his law and his history, if he wants to be president.

Second, claiming LGBT people are not discriminated against because we haven’t been beaten is demonstrably and offensively false. Just ask any anti-LGBT hate crime victim of violence here, or in any country. True, perhaps we don’t have separate water fountains, but it was Huckabee himself who, in 1992 called for people with HIV/AIDS to be quarantined. Also that same year, Huckabee called for the death penalty to be mandatory for “anyone who transmits a deadly virus, such as AIDS.”

Meanwhile, let’s look at Huckabee’s comments from another perspective.

Black people didn’t face just being “hosed in the street,” or “beaten,” and weren’t just “truly discriminated against with separate restrooms, separate drinking fountains, separate entrances.”

Black people in America were slaves, were raped, whipped, sold, murdered, lynched, dragged, and, property.

Black people after slavery have been the victims of federal, state, and local laws designed to incarcerate them, prevent them from getting housing loans, prevent them from voting, getting an education, and jobs. And that’s just a small portion of the discrimination Black people have faced for centuries in America.

So, Governor Huckabee managed to make wildly offensive remarks, exposing his extraordinarily obvious white privilege and anti-LGBT beliefs, all in one fell swoop!

Listen to Huckabee’s comments here:

https://soundcloud.com/buzzfeedandrew/huckabee-same-sex-marriage-not-a-civil-right

 

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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license