TPM Livewire reports:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) is against gay marriage, at least in part, because of the “ick factor.”

“I do believe that God created male and female and intended for marriage to be the relationship of the two opposite sexes,” Huckabee said in a recent New Yorker profile. “Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same.”

Earlier this year, Huckabee — who, according to polls, is a Republican frontrunner in the 2012 presidential race — said gay couples shouldn’t be able to adopt, saying, “Children are not puppies.”

The New Yorker profile of Huckabee is quite revealing as well, and not just for the bit that TPM pulls out:

Huckabee was a Baptist minister before he went into politics, but, like Boone and most of the other people in their group, he is crazy about Israel and extremely enthusiastic about Jews. “I worship a Jew!” Huckabee said. “I have a lot of Jewish friends, and they’re kind of, like, ‘You evangelicals love Israel more than we do.’ I’m, like, ‘Do you not get it? If there weren’t a Jewish faith, there wouldn’t be a Christian faith!’ ”

…and as we all know, the only good thing about other faiths is how helpful they are to Christianity and the theocrat agenda, right Huck?

The tour buses took the Christians to a souvenir shop next, and while people shopped for olive-wood Jesus figurines in the front room, Huckabee stood in back and talked to me about the End of Days. This is a big topic among evangelicals. The “Left Behind” novels, which dramatize the Rapture, when believers are lifted up to Heaven and everyone else is stuck on a very violent Earth, have sold sixty-three million copies. (The books’ co-authors, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, endorsed Huckabee for President in 2008. ) Many people on the trip were insistently pro-Israel, at least in part because they believe that Jewish control of the territory between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean is a Biblically ordained condition for the Second Coming of Christ. Huckabee believes that history will end and that the Rapture will come, but he doesn’t tie himself to a time line. “I was a lot more sure when I was eighteen!” he said. “I thought it would be one heck of an end-of-the-world war.”

Other members of the group politely admitted that they had no doubt that most Israelis, and anyone else who had not accepted Christ as Lord and Saviour, would be spending eternity in Hell.

These people don’t love Israel or Jews except insofar as they can play their part in the End Times by dying and drowning in the eternal lake of fire.

TPM adds this:

As governor, according to the profile, Huckabee signed 16 death orders. He also commuted the sentence of one man, convicted of burglary and aggravated assault and sentenced to more than 100 years in prison, who went on to kill four police officers.

“The truth is, it could be the kind of thing that would keep me from ever being able to run,” Huckabee said.

O RLY? In addition to having pardoned Maurice Clemons, Huckabee also pardoned a rapist — against the advice of the parole board—who went on to rape and kill other women. Didn’t tank his 2008 run, did it?

That would be Wayne Dumond. Don’t worry, Huckabee must have had a good reason for pardoning him…

What seems not to be in dispute is that Huckabee went in to the meeting having bought into the anti-Clinton whackjob theory that serial rapist Dumond was a victim of Clinton justice and was unjustly imprisoned.

Huckabee pardoned Dumond because he listened to a Baptist minister with a radio show, purveyor of insane Clinton conspiracy theories back in the mid 90’s:

The case for Dumond’s innocence was championed in Arkansas by Jay Cole, a Baptist minister and radio host who was a close friend of the Huckabee family.

And Huckabee has been lying about it ever since:

Documents Expose Huckabee’s Role In Serial Rapist’s Release

[…]
But the confidential files show that Huckabee was provided letters from several women who had been sexually assaulted by Dumond and who indeed predicted that he would rape again - and perhaps murder - if released.
[…]
After Dumond’s release from prison in September 1999, he moved to Smithville, Missouri, where he raped and suffocated to death a 39-year-old woman named Carol Sue Shields. Dumond was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison for that rape and murder.

But Dumond’s arrest for those crimes in June 2001 came too late for 23-year-old Sara Andrasek of Platte County, Missouri. Dumond allegedly raped and murdered her just one day before his arrest for raping and murdering Shields. Prior to the attack, Andrasek and her husband had learned that she was pregnant with their first child.

That’s Mike Huckabee and his values for you.