An Open Letter to Mike Huckabee: F**k You!

So, Mike, I heard you like The Gays? Well, shoot, don’t that make me feel just like Sally Field; you like me, right now, you really like me. In fact, I heard you make that statement on CNN this week — while promoting new ‘book’ — and, well, I am just pleased as pun — wait a second. Let’s take a minute to read exactly what it was that you said:

"People can be my friends who have lifestyles that are not necessarily my lifestyle. I don't shut people out of my circle or out of my life because they have a different point of view. I don't drink alcohol, but gosh -- a lot of my friends, maybe most of them, do. You know, I don't use profanity, but believe me, I've got a lot of friends who do. Some people really like classical music and ballet and opera -- it's not my cup of tea."

So, um, being gay is like drinking or swearing? Or classical music and opera? What? I thought those were things people chose to do — I mean, I choose to swear like a truck driver and I choose to have wine with dinner — but being gay is an actual orientation that people don’t choose, but are gifted with at birth, like having blue eyes or a certain skin color.

And when people seem to suggest, even in their backhanded, offhand, way, like you do, that being gay is a choice, or something, I want to ask when you chose to be straight. I mean, if I choose my orientation, then that would suggest that everyone does. So, how many homosexual experiences did you have, Mike, how many barn hayloft circle jerks did you enjoy, or endure, before choosing heterosexuality?

That’s what I thought. And Mike, while being gay is not a choice, it is also not a “lifestyle”; and if you need my help, let me give you a definition of lifestyle, m’kay, in case you’re, well, uninformed … which, like choosing to drink or swear at the opera, is a choice:

life·style

ˈlīfˌstīl/ noun

the way in which a person or group lives.

Hmm, the ‘way in which a person lives’? See, Mike, gay people don’t live a ‘certain’; way; we live every which way because we are all kinds of people; we are Black and White, Asian, Latino; we are tall and short and thin and fat; rich and poor; smart and not so much. So you cannot lump us into a lifestyle because we all don’t fit that same lifestyle, and I’ll kindly ask you to stop saying that; it’s so last century.

And also please stop saying marriage has always been one man and one woman and hasn’t changed since God opened up a drive-thru wedding chapel on the Vegas strip; marriage has gone from being a coupling created to build a stronger family, to create more power, as a land grab; marriage has gone from being an institution where the woman is “given” to the man as property; marriage has gone from, as it was during the time Jesus walked the Earth, from being a one man and his many wives institution; it’s gone from being an institution where you don’t marry outside your race or faith or socioeconomic status.

Marriage has changed, and it will change and it will evolve, and you can stomp you feet and talk about how it hasn’t, but you’re still standing in the past begging all of us to come back and live there with you, and we won’t.

We’re changing; we understand that people are different, and come in all different shapes and sizes and colors and orientations, and just because “it’s always been that way” is not a reason to not change and grow. So, Mike, as I said up there at the top, F**k you.

Stop playing that two-headed Christian monster who seeks to deny me any form of equality because I’m gay, and then saying that you have gay friends and you like gay people, because I’ve yet to hear a single gay friend of yours come out and support you in your ridiculous rhetoric. That’s the same as the white man in the 60s saying he likes Black people, while he’s slipping into that white sheet and the pointing hat to go burn a cross on someone’s lawn; it’s a lie, and a way to make you feel better about being a bigot, a homophobe, and a hater.

Oh sure, I know you’ll never change your mind on same-sex marriage, because you keep spouting the Bible verse upon Bible verse, conveniently ignoring the ones that tell you not to judge, or to love your neighbor; well, we are not a Biblical nation, Mike, no matter what you say, no matter what you want to believe. Like The Gays, Americans are all kinds of people, in all shapes and colors and orientations and, yes, religious beliefs, so you have no business using your personal faith in your political choices. We don’t work that way in America.

So, again, Mike, f**k you.

You make like The Gays; you may have a gay friend or two, but I, as a gay man, don’t like you. I don’t like cowards who hide behind a history book; I don’t like politicians who want to use the Bible, and not the constitution, to govern this country. I don't like people who say they have gay friends and then work overtime to deny them rights because they're gay.

I don’t like you. And that, Mike, is a choice.

quote via CNN