Mike Huckabee Equates Gay Scout Leaders With Child Molesters

Mike Huckabee

While supporting the Boy Scouts' decision not to allow gay troop leaders and scouts, Fox News commentator Mike Huckabee equated gay people with child molesters.

The former Arkansas governor and failed presidential candidate was reacting to a caller's story of being abused by a scout leader while serving as a Boy Scout.

"You make us all understand why the Boy Scouts made a decision that at least I think was the right one," he told the caller.

"Tim" said he had been repeatedly abused and offered a theory on what caused it. "I believe homosexuals try to target groups like that to get a leadership area in," the caller said. "If there hadn't been a homosexual in my troop, I wouldn't have been traumatized for about three years."

Huckabee shared that the leader of his own childhood scout troop had molested other boys. "We didn't even know what a homosexual was in those days," he said.

The Public Advocate, which is labeled a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is essentially making the same argument — that allowing gay people to be troop leaders would lead to child molestation.

Media Matters posted audio of the exchange. Listen below.