The United States shouldn't try to kill Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Mike Huckabee declared when he first ran for office. No women in combat anywhere. No gays in the military. No contributions in politics to candidates more than a year before an election.
His statements are among 229 answers Huckabee offered as a 36-year-old Texarkana pastor during his first run for political office in 1992. In that unsuccessful race for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Dale Bumpers, Huckabee offered himself as a social conservative and listed ''moral decay'' as one of the top problems facing the country.
Now that he's a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, he's being asked anew about some of the views and comments he expressed in the survey by the Associated Press. Over the weekend he said he wouldn't retract answers in which he advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased funding for finding a cure, and said homosexuality could pose a public health risk -- though he said today he might phrase his answers ''a little differently.''
Some of the words in his answers to the questionnaire are indeed strong.
Asked about gays in the military, for example, he didn't just reject the idea but added, ''I believe to try to legitimize that which is inherently illegitimate would be a disgraceful act of government. I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk.'' (AP)
