In the wake of the Duggar awfulness, several things happened all at once. One, people pointed out the utter, contemptible hypocrisy of their politics, which included Michelle Duggar’s 2014 robocalls equating trans people to pedophiles. Two, the Duggars’ big political cheerleader Mike Huckabee came out and publicly defended them, Josh specifically, without even saying even some cursory words of support to Josh’s many victims. Well, Buzzfeed and other outlets got their hands on a speech Mike Huckabee made just a few months ago (at the 2015 National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville) in which he goes full-tilt against trans individuals. You can see some of the video here. Some selected comments from Huckabee:

“For those who do not think that we are under threat, simply recognize that the fact that we are now in city after city watching ordinances say that your 7-year-old daughter, if she goes into the restroom cannot be offended and you can’t be offended if she’s greeted there by a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man.”

“Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE,” said Huckabee. “I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’ You’re laughing because it sounds so ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

“And yet today we are the ones who are ridiculed and scorned because we point out the obvious,” he said.

“That there is something inherently wrong about forcing little children to be a part of this social experiment. I’m not against anybody. I’d just like for somebody to bring their brain to work some day and not leave it on the bed stand when they show up to govern.”

[From Buzzfeed]

Some of the less arch-conservative members of the GOP realize that these kinds of “social issues” are no longer the vote-getters they once were. Ten years ago, Huckabee could have spewed this crap and it would have been where half the country was politically. But just on a political level, this doesn’t fly like it used to. Add to that the fact of Huckabee’s blatant and Duggar-specific hypocrisy, and it’s just pathetic. It’s like he’s very much making a conscious choice to support an admitted and confessed pedophile with multiple victims… while at the same time insinuating that children are going to be somehow “hurt” if society treats trans people with respect and dignity.

And Huckabee’s son tortured and killed a dog. So that speaks to Huckabee’s parenting, I’m pretty sure.

Photos courtesy of Josh Duggar’s Facebook, WENN.