In an interview with Beliefnet.com, former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee “clarified his view that the Constitution should be amended to be brought in line with God’s will — and he directly equated homosexuality with bestiality.”

QUESTIONER: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

At first glance, Huckabee’s argument sounds homophobic, on closer examination it betrays the former governor’s willingness to place his private religious creed above rational decision making– the very basis of a secular democracy– and a personal inability (or unwillingness) to make logical and rational distinctions within law.

As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick points out, polygamy, pedophilia, and bestiality “are illegal because, [unlike gay marriage], they cause irreversible harms.”

…there are sound policy and health reasons to ban sex with animals…one can plausibly argue that there is a rational basis for states to ban polygamous and polyamorous marriages in which there has been historical evidence of an imbalance of power, coercion (particularly of young girls), and an enormous financial burden placed on the state. None of these arguments can be made against gay marriage.

Similarly, Andrew Sullivan highlights the importance of distinguishing between rational decision making and Huckabee-style hysteria.

The precise challenge for morally serious people is to make rational distinctions between what is arbitrary and what is essential in important social institutions…If you want to argue that a lifetime of loving, faithful commitment between two women is equivalent to incest or child abuse, then please argue it. It would make for fascinating reading. But spare us this bizarre point that no new line can be drawn in access to marriage–or else everything is up for grabs and, before we know where we are, men will be marrying their dogs. It is intellectually laughable.

Huckabee’s demeaning and intellectually dishonest answer trivializes, patronizes and demeans homosexual relationships and reveals that the governor is more than willing to insert his personal religious interpretation into government. More alarming still, is his inability to make the obvious distinctions between gay marriage (a union between two consenting adult men or two consenting adult women) and a union between “a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal.”

Because Huckabee is unable to make the kinds of rational distinctions necessary to govern America, he is unfit for office.

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