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Op-ed: Kim Davis, Mike Huckabee's Hate Show Needed an X Rating
Somewhere in Kentucky Tuesday, a closeted gay kid might have turned on CNN or MSNBC and caught an antigay rally broadcast live. The whole experience was surreal to watch here in the newsroom, leaving me with a sense of awe and deep sadness. A twinge of dread too.
It isn’t surprising, or shouldn’t be, that such bigotry still exists in states that the Supreme Court — only months ago — forced to recognize same-sex marriages. But we can’t let this rally pass without fully appreciating its significance.
If there is an uptick in suicides of closeted youth with religious families, the rally is partly to blame. If hate crimes or aggressions against LGBT people seem to occur with alarming regularity, let’s harken back to the rhetoric from this rally.
Mike Huckabee, a top-tier candidate for U.S. president, was the opening act. He gave a full-throated speech, or sermon, against people like me living as I do — a man married to another man, raising two kids together.
“It is far more than one clerk saying she will not issue marriage licenses,” said Huckabee, alluding to the movement he’s hoping Davis will incite across America. “It’s that every one of us will have to decide whether or not we want to keep this great republic, or whether we are willing to sacrifice it and surrender it to tyranny.”
The people at that rally were being told of a growing threat, and Huckabee used the language of war to make his point.
“We will not surrender,” he promised, “to the tyranny of one branch of government.”
The crowd went wild at every applause line. Meanwhile, wooden crosses and a Confederate flag were being waved back and forth in the air. It seemed to go on forever.
“I’m not willing to spend one day under the tyranny of people who believe they can take our freedom and conscience away,” said Huckabee.
Speaking on behalf of this group, Huckabee said they “will not be bullied no matter even if they incarcerate us.” He volunteered to go to jail himself, begging the question of whether his fellow fighters have the fortitude to do the same. First, he said, they came for Kim Davis.
“Whose next? Your pastor? The head of a school?” Huckabee asked. The whole thing had a tinge of World War II to it, with Huckabee casting himself in the moral rebellion against the coming evil oppression. We all remember the poem that warned about what happens if you don’t stand up for each other.
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Huckabee and the rest of the right wing want their voters believing that they are under attack. Worse, perhaps, they want their voters to believe that the whole country, and maybe all of society, is on the precipice of judgment by God. Those who do nothing will be judged.
Huckabee and these Christians hold up God’s example as the ideal. Then Huckabee on Tuesday went a step further and cast Kim Davis as their savior incarnate.
“God showed up,” he told the rally. “And he showed up in the form of an elected Democrat named Kim Davis.”
Kim Davis is a model Christian, he said, and anything less than her example might mean hell for you too. That’s a pretty serious motivator, if you believe in God and hell, which a lot of people do.
So what are you to do? If you’re like Kim Davis, and are told that all of your past sins are forgiven if only you keep proving your devotion to this God, then what are you to say when you see a gay couple holding hands? You must “stand up,” as Huckabee puts it, before it’s too late.
The shocking thing about that rally, for me and the gay kid somewhere in Kentucky, is that they weren’t ashamed of their beliefs.
No one wore a hood. Instead everyone there was just fine with being broadcast on television sets nationwide. Their message, beamed to millions in real time, is clear: Gay people are the enemy.
So maybe the next time Mike Huckabee holds a hate rally, it shouldn’t be broadcast live.
LUCAS GRINDLEY is the editorial director of Here Media, the parent company of The Advocate.
Lucas Grindley
www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/9/09/op-ed-kim-davis-mike-huckabees-hate-show-needed-x-rating
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