Huckabee Signed 1998 Statement Telling Women to ‘Submit’

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a leading contender for the Republican party’s presidential endorsement, signed a 1998 statement urging wives to “graciously submit to their husband’s sacrificial leadership.”

The statement, which was published in USA Today by the Southern Baptist Convention, also affirmed that “the family was God’s idea, not man’s, and that marriage is a covenant between one man and one woman for a lifetime.”

Responding to the revelation, center-right blogger Andrew Sullivan wrote, “It seems to me that Huckabee should be asked if he still stands by that. And if he thinks it applies to Senator [Hillary] Clinton.”Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential endorsement.

Huckabee served as a minister in the Southern Baptist church for 12 years before entering politics, and served as president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention from 1989 to 1991. 

Huckabee has also come under fire for answers he gave during his 1992 campaign for U.S. Senate, when he called homosexuality “an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle.”  Huckabee called for quarantining AIDS patients, and suggested that instead of increased government funding for AIDS research, “multimillionaire celebrities, such as Elizabeth Taylor Madonna and others who are pushing for more AIDS funding be encouraged to give out of their own personal treasuries increased amounts for AIDS research.”

Huckabee is one of a few front-runners for the Republican party’s endorsement; recent polls have shown him leading Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in Iowa.