Conservative Arkansas Governor Supports Sodomy Ruling
The
Advocate, July 4, 2003
Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a Baptist preacher, says
the nation’s high court was probably right to strike down sodomy laws but
says states still should be able to restrict things such as same-sex marriage
or domestic-partner benefits. Huckabee said Wednesday that government should
stay out of the private lives of gay and lesbian people unless their behavior
involves public policy. “What people do in the privacy of their own lives as
adults is their business,” said Huckabee, a favorite of Christian
conservatives and a former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
“If they bring it into the public square and ask me as a taxpayer to support
it or to endorse it, then it becomes a matter of public discussion and
discourse.” Huckabee’s comments came in response to a caller to his
monthly statewide radio call-in show. He said the ruling appears to be the
appropriate one because of the difficulty of enforcing laws regulating private
behavior as well as the policy questions involved.
Arkansas’s supreme court struck down the state’s
sodomy law last year, saying it was an unconstitutional invasion of privacy to
“enforce a majority morality on persons whose conduct does not harm
others.” Still, the governor said that states should retain certain rights
to set moral standards in public policy. “Government certainly has a
responsibility and a right to say [that] if you bring it into the public
square and ask for same-sex marriage or survivor benefits to be paid to a
same-sex partner, we have a right to say no to that,” he said.
Rita Sklar, director of the Arkansas chapter of the
American Civil Liberties Union, said Huckabee’s acceptance of the sanctity
of private gay sex is irrelevant now that the court decision is the law of the
land. “It would have been nice to hear that a couple of years ago when we
were trying to strike down the state sodomy law,” Sklar said. “And while
that ruling was important, what is more important is that in every other
aspect of life, they will be able to participate without discrimination.”
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