Will Huckabee's new daytime network television chat show be Dr. Laura'd?

Special Programs LGBTQ

Written by Karl Frisch

Published

In 2000, an online movement of activists concerned with Dr. (Ph.D. in physiology not psychiatry) Laura Schlessinger's homophobic commentary organized an effort to get the controversial radio host's newly minted daytime television talk show pulled from the airwaves. According to StopDrLaura.com:

Over a ten-month period starting on March 1, 2000, this Web site galvanized thousands of activists across the US, Canada and beyond into an online juggernaut that forced Dr. Laura Schlessinger off television. In that short time, the pro-bono StopDrLaura.com registered over 50 million hits and 3 million visitors, while over 170 advertisers abandoned Dr. Laura's television show in the US and Canada, leading many to call the StopDrLaura.com campaign the first successful TV boycott in history (and winning it the Internet's prestigious “Golden Dot” award from George Washington University). Dr. Laura's TV show was finally canceled on March 30, 2001.

As Joe Strupp noted yesterday, Fox News host and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee " is getting a shot at broadcast television with a talk show on some Fox affiliates."

The Times reports: "'The Huckabee Show,' ... will have a preview run on weekdays for six weeks on some of the stations owned by the Fox Television Stations group, including WNYW in New York, KDFW in Dallas/Fort Worth, and WAGA in Atlanta. The preview, by the syndication unit of News Corporation, Twentieth Television, will begin on Monday, July 26."

Like Schlessinger, Huckabee is a regular offender when it comes to homophobic commentary. Just days ago Huckabee admitted he's opposed to gay marriage, in part, because of the “ick factor.”

It remains to be seen whether grassroots activists will take to the internet as they did with Schlessinger to force The Huchabee Show's cancelation.

Here's just a sampling of Huckabee's most recent anti-gay commentary:

You can find more about Huckabee's record when it comes to LGBT issues, including his 1992 support for isolating people with HIV/AIDS away from the general population, right here.