I know that, while writing some of these posts, I can get a bit repetitive in some of my thoughts. You’ll see me talk a great deal about how opponents of reproductive and other rights have a tendency to make stuff up and pass it off as the truth. I have a bad habit of reading far right-wing websites and so I can sometimes fixate on the activities of the more “out there” (to use the best euphemism I can) members of society. But what probably bothers me the most, what infuriates me every time, is hypocrisy. And unfortunately for me (and my blood pressure), it often seems that politicians most opposed to issues I care deeply about are the most hypocritical.

Take, for example, Mike Huckabee. Huckabee (former governor of Arkansas and Republican Presidential hopeful, current Fox “News” host) recently spoke at a pro-life banquet at Purdue University in Indiana. In front of over 650 attendees, Huckabee said the following:

“We cannot allow our country to get to the point where we decide that one life is expendable and another is valuable. We need to recognize the worth of all human beings, not only in politics, but in culture.”

This sounds innocuous enough, as it’s fairly standard rhetoric. It’s an argument that one could hear from just about any member of the anti-choice crowd. But Huckabee’s famous enough that many of his other comments are in the public sphere and, as we’ll see, it’s fairly easy to ascertain that Mike Huckabee doesn’t recognize the worth of all humans… just the ones he can manipulate for political advantages.

Shortly after Barack Obama’s election, Huckabee went on the televised battle royale known as The View. While there, he talked about the significance of America’s first black president and was questioned about his stance on LGBT rights (the video from the link’s been disabled, but the article has the transcript of the appearance, plus a brilliant deconstruction of what Huckabee’s really saying between the lines). In a nutshell, Huckabee basically states that he doesn’t believe that LGBT rights is a civil rights issue and that, because of this fact, laws shouldn’t be passed to protect LGBT citizens. His rationale for this belief? The fact that not enough gays have been beaten or killed. Yes, seriously.

In other words, in Huckabee’s eyes, for LGBT Americans to be worthy of equal protection under the law, more of them need to be hate crimed (on a side note, I’ve often wondered what the magic number of beatings/killings is to reach civil rights status. Huckabee’s never explicitly stated). That doesn’t really jibe with the whole “respecting the worth of all humans” belief, does it? After all, it seems that if gays are to meet Huckabee’s litmus test for civil rights, more need to die tragically… which indicates that Huckabee does, in fact, find some lives worthy of being sacrificed.

And this is the rub with the anti-choice crowd. They tend to go on and on about the sanctity of life, the worth of every life, of the unborn… but it’s only talk. In reality, it masks what’s really at stake: an attempt to impose a supposed level of morality on others. Anti-choicers like Huckabee don’t have any interest in the sanctity of human life. If they did, they would actively fight to protect every human being… gay, straight… African-American, white… Christian, Muslim… from harm. But they don’t even come close. Instead, it’s just about making others believe what they do… and even worse, it’s about controlling the decisions of others through rhetoric, deception, and a false sense of morality.

Now, some of you may be thinking that I’m being a little too hard on Huckabee or that I’m unfairly jumping to conclusions. But honestly… I don’t see how you can have it both ways. You either mean what you say… or you don’t. And it seems pretty clear that Huckabee just doesn’t.

Sadly, Huckabee’s just the tip of the hypocrisy iceberg. Because, as you’ll see in the second half of my posting (Galling Pro-”Life” Hypocrites II: Electric Boogaloo)… things can get much, much worse.

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