Mike Huckabee Comes Under Fire from AIDS Activist Group for Refusing to Apologize

On Tuesday, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation brought Republican Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, under fire for his not apologizing for "alarmist" statements made during his 1992 Senate campaign in which he called for people living with HIV/AIDS to be isolated from the general population.

"It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents," Huckabee told the Associated Press 15 years ago.

"Huckabee's stubbornness in not apologizing today for these earlier misguided statements demonstrates just how unsuitable he is to serve as President. With HIV rates rising so rapidly in the U.S. and globally, it would be a catastrophe to have someone so ignorant about the disease serving as the head of the executive branch of our government," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which is the United States' largest non-profit HIV/AIDS healthcare, research, prevention, and education provider.

Huckabee, who was 36 at the time and failed to win the seat in the Senate that he sought, has been under fire for other statements made in his younger years at that time as well, including those in which he said women should not be in combat positions in the military, and gays should not be in the military at all. He called homosexuality "sinful" and "aberrant" as well.

However, while Huckabee has recently stated that no-one would be able to find any "YouTube videos" of him saying anything radically different then that would contradict his present feelings on issues, he has recently said that there should be federal funding used to find a cure for AIDS-something he was opposed to as an Arkansas governor in 1992.

Huckabee said that he made his statements about the cruel syndrome back then based on wrong information about how AIDS is transmitted.

Huckabee, who is a former Baptist minister and known bass-playing rock-n-roll fan, has been surging in polls lately. His ability to speak clearly, his consistency, and his conservative morals have been driving him to what were only recently heights of popularity thought unattainable. A recently published CNN opinion poll placed Huckabee in fourth place out of all Presidential candidates, behind Clinton, Obama, and Giuliani respectively.

Huckabee, who has been criticized for his too-liberal stance on illegal immigrants, has also just picked up the official endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, founder of the controversial Minuteman Project that has placed "agents" at the Canadian and Mexican borders to watch for illegal immigration.

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