Iowa Family Policy Center President Chuck Hurley once called for the “healing of openly gay students.” During the recent judicial retention campaign, he said that gays’ civil marriages are “a degradation of God’s best design for the family.” He’s the one to Mike Huckabee’s right, wearing both the glasses and the smile:
And that’s far from all we’ve seen from the Iowa Family Policy Center. Director of Public Relations & Outreach Bryan English warned state residents that marriage equality must be rolled back, as it’s “only a matter of time now before those of us who are still willing to speak the truth and say that homosexuality is wrong are the ones that they are calling criminals.” The group also once created a truly disgusting video featuring parents of a son who died of AIDS, with the suggestion being that Iowa marriage equality, a concept one would logically assume will actually encourage monogamy, will instead lead to more “evils of the homosexual lifestyle.”
Oh, and as for IFPC affilaite Bob Vander Plaats, who’s standing on Huckabee’s left in the above photo? Well, where to even begin with that one? Because while Bob, a one time candidate and personal Huck friend, is far savvier than others in the movement, his whole career over the past couple of years has revolved around telling his Iowa neighbors that gays’ marriages will destroy all that is good and right (even though gays marriages are currently, right now, as we speak, not destroy jack crapballs in the state). And in terms of personalizing his fight: Bob has focused not only on gays but rather on the personal lives of all Iowans, routinely claiming that private property, Second Amendment rights, education, and even life and death determinations hinge on banning gays’ marriages.
But never mind all that personally-targeted rhetoric. Because on the very day that the above Hurley/Huckabee/Vander Plaats photo was taken (at the launch of IFPC spinoff group The Family Leader), Mike Huckabee told his supporters that there’s absolutely nothing personal about he and his friends’ cultural mob war:
Right. Okay, so there are two ways of looking at this. (1) You can see it as incredibly disingenuous political speak, considering just how personally these fights affect gay families and their supporters. Or (2) you can see Huckabee’s words as incredibly revelatory, showing how what is so undeniably human-centric is nothing more than contrived, “culture war” business for these who turn actual lives into political rhetoric and associated fundraising opps.
Though don’t worry: Deep offense is at least one through line connecting the two options. Feel free to let out those emotions. Personally.