Source: compiled by seaQwa's Qnews from these reports: Think Progress, CBS News, MSNBC transcript
On NBC's Meet The Press this morning, host Tim Russert asked former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee if he believed "people are born gay or choose to be gay?"

"I don't know whether people are born that way," responded Huckabee, "but one thing I know, that the behavior one practices is a choice."

Huckabee conceded that "people who are gay say that they're born that way," but added that he believed that "how we behave and how we carry out that behavior" is more important.

Huckabee was asked about this line from a book he wrote in 1998, Kids Who Kill: "It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations -- from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia."

Does he really consider homosexuality to be equivalent to these other practices, Russert asked?

"Oh, of course not," Huckabee replied, though "all of these are deviations from what has been the traditional concept of marriage."

He explained that his opposition to marriage equality is rooted in his interpretations of his religious faith.

"The perfection of God is seen in a marriage in which one man, one woman live together as a couple committed to each other as life partners," Huckabee explained.  "Now, even married couples don't do that perfectly, so sin is not some act of equating people with being murderers or rapists..."

Russert pressed Huckabee on the relationship between government and religion. The candidate insisted that he would be willing to appoint an atheist to a cabinet post.

Huckabee argued that he had served longer as governor of Arkansas -- 10 1/2 years -- than he had as a Baptist minister. 

"And if people want to know how I would blend these issues, the best way to look at it is how I served as a governor.  I didn't ever propose a bill that we would remove the capitol dome of Arkansas and replace it with a steeple.  You know, we didn't do tent revivals on the grounds of the capitol.  But my faith is important to me." 

Later in the interview -- instead of completing his answer to Russert's question about his view of homosexuality as an "aberration" --  Huckabee said, "I've never tried to rewrite science textbooks.  I've never tried to come out with some way of imposing a doctrinaire Christian perspective in a way that is really against the Constitution.  I've never done that."

But the website ThinkProgress has noted that Huckabee has a record of using the power of government to discriminate against the choices that gay people make in their private lives. As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee pushed to strengthen the state's anti-sodomy laws in order to "protect the traditional family structure":

In 1997, Huckabee requested an amendment to a state Senate bill stating "that it is Arkansas public policy to prohibit sodomy to protect the traditional family structure." [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1/23/1997]

Huckabee is also fervent in his efforts to deny gay men and women the right to choose to marry the ones they love. Recently, he told GQ that "civilization" may not survive if "what marriage and family means" is "rewritten" to allow gay marriage.

Full article: Think Progress � Huckabee: `I Don't Know' If People Are `Born' Gay, But It's A `Choice' To Act Gay
Huckabee on "Meet the Press" | CBS News
`Meet the Press' transcript for Dec. 30, 2007 | MSNBC