Why shouldn't I be frightened of you, Mr. Huckabee?

Dealing with the petty issues first, anyone who wraps so much of their public image around an office they no longer hold - seems dangerously insecure, at best. Mr. Huckabee, you WERE governor of Arkansas - you no longer are.

Insisting that, or encouraging individuals to, refer to you by your former title is not a sign of the strength of character that I find encouraging in a presidential candidate.

Particularly when, given the nature of other prior occupants of that office, it clearly does not confer any sort of predilection for reason, morality, or respect for the constitution or the founding principles of our nation.

Such things, however, merely sap enthusiasm for a candidacy. They do not promote active opposition.

Far more concerning to me is your disregard for the separation of church and state, and your apparent desire to see a President lead based on biblical passage over constitutional authority, statutory law, fairness, and respect of the rights of the individual - even to do things that we may or may not find morally repugnant.

Far more concerning is that you appear never have outgrown the sanctimony-coated bigotry that while regrettable, is tolerable in a pastor (after all, one can always find another church)...but utterly abhorrent in an elected official. I urge you, given your enthusiasm for the volume, to consider the passage:

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me. [Matthew 25:40, KJV]

Might it be worth considering that selecting out a group of law-abiding individuals for denigration and deprivation of some or all of the rights shared by all other individuals, be a significant wrong imposed upon the selected group? A wrong well worth avoiding?

Marriage recognized by the state, as exemplified in civil marriage, bears little (and should bear less) on the marriages and associated standards and rituals held or promulgated by the various religious faiths and bodies. Just as the Russian Orthodox have no business telling the Roman Catholics or that faith telling practitioners of Reformed Judaism how to pursue the dictates of their faith, and who may or may not be morally married under those tenets - the government has even *less* business dictating such matters to the various religious sorts.

I cite, for instance, your disingenuous opposition to LGBT marriage and same sex unions as "social experiments" - denigrating the loving and stable (well, at least as stable as similar heterosexual partnerships, such as human nature allows to survive) relationships of thousands of couples across the United States.

Your opposition to measures that historically, while not an absolute panacea, reduces promiscuity and the spread of disease while forming a stronger social and economic unit for its members - reducing dependence on the state - reeks of simple bigotry, rather than any sort of logic or rationale. Such same sex marriages also allow an orderly dissolution of relationships under all but the most hostile of circumstances with the impartial guidance of a court - rather than a drawn out contest to see which partner can hold their breath the longest.

Similarly, your opposition to allowing LGBT folks to adopt children (long a moot point in most areas, and best left so) when in reality they have been raising children with no greater rate of failure or success than their heterosexual counterparts for quite some time now - except those children do not, as a result of wrong-headed public policy in many locales, have the stability of a *legally recognized* second parent or of an orderly transition in the case of a separation or divorce.

Moving along to the now "repealed" Don't Ask, Don't Tell Clinton policy, our military is where we should expect the best of our nation - where we rightfully expect courage of convictions as well as courage on the battlefield, and where we expect that - so long as persons follow all other regulations, including those regarding fraternization - what consenting adults choose to sleep together is none of the business of the military specifically or the government generally. Let merit rule the day!

If the Israeli's and the majority of other serious modern militaries can pull it off, certainly the military of the United States can manage to honestly acknowledge and welcome its past and present LGBT members on a just and even-handed basis.

Your failure to learn from historic example (Prohibition? The funding of modern organized crime? And it's parallel in the War on Drugs?) indicates an abysmal, if not intentional, ignorance of history - any time there is sufficient demand for a product or service and such item is banned by law, a violent and inherently unregulated black market will spring up to fulfill the expressed economic need. Most often, this black market will bring problems substantially worse than the original issue (cartels, anyone? Mexico as a failed nation on our southern border?)

Others will criticize you on other matters - the above is sufficient, when you are willing to admit to such views while still a potential candidate, to persuade me that however folksy you may be...you are unsuited to the office of President, and a danger to the rights and freedoms of myself and those I care about no less than Jerry Falwell, or the sound of boots in the latter days of Weimarr Germany.

Beware those trumpeting moral superiority, for convinced of their righteousness, they shall know few restraints upon their exercise of power over those they rule - for their "god" told them they were right.