In 1979 Sermon Against 'Life Of Brian,' Young Mike Huckabee Was Already One Biggus Dickus

Now that he's "running for president" again, very serious contender Mike Huckabee has to endure all sorts of embarrassments, like people quoting all the dumb things Mike Huckabee has ever said. It just comes with the territory -- the embarrassing naked baby pictures of politics. And what with Mike Huckabee's rich heritage as a fire-n-brimstone Baptist preacher, you'd expect there'd be a lot of interest in his old sermons, but as journalists discovered when Huck ran in 2008, he's nailed those suckers up tight and no one's ever going to see what the future governor had to say about the issues of the day when he was a young Minister of the Lord. But we got a short glimpse this week, as  Mother Jones  dug up a partial recording of a sermon from 1979 in which the Baby Pastor preached against the evils of strong drink, porn, and that year's greatest threat to Christendom, Monty Python's Life of Brian. 

Oh, sure, the stuff about booze and porn is OK, but pretty standard-issue Baptist stuff -- liquor kills, and yet it is nonetheless legal, O the Horror. And also all the porn is ruining America and the family, and that there is proof that the Devil is amongst us. But the really good stuff starts when Young Huck starts on Life of Brian, which, as we all remember, was the most blasphemous thing ever put to celluloid, and was surely a sign that Hollywood had lost its moral compass (OK, sure, it was made in Britishland, but still). Some theaters refused to show it, it got picketed, and so on. And by golly, it sure made Young Huck ever so mad, and sad for how far our once-great nation had fallen:

There was a time in this country when a movie like The Life of Brian which, I just read -- thank God the theaters in Little Rock decided not to show, but it's showing all over the Fort Worth–Dallas area, which is a mockery, which is a blasphemy against the very name of Jesus Christ, and I can remember a day even as young as I am when that would not have happened in this country or in the city in the South.

There are few things as cute as someone who's still in college waxing nostalgic for the good old days when this was a better place, a few weeks ago. Oh, but now, British ruffians wander the South, hitting up old women for shrubberies, wantonly saying Ni! and shamelessly quoting the wrong Python movie. Huck continues:

But friend, it's happening all over and no one's blinking an eye, and we can talk about how the devil's moved in and the devil's moved in but what's really happened is God's people have moved out and made room for it. We've put up the for sale sign and we've announced a very cheap price for what our lives really are. We've sold our character, we've sold our convictions, we've compromised, we've sold out and as a result we've moved out the devil's moved in and he's set up shop. And friend [he's] preying on our own craving for pleasure.

Terrifying isn't it? O how depraved the world has become, truly, a time when the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock. And just look at how much farther we've fallen today, when "Always Look on the Bright Side Of Life" has become the most popular song at funerals, at least in Godless England (Americans, being dullards, go more for "My Way").

At least we can rely on some things. Mike Huckabee will keep saying dumb things, just like he did back in the 1990s when he was a big fan of curing AIDS by killing anyone who transmitted the HIV virus, or last year when he said that women wanting insurance coverage are naught but common hoors, or even just a few months ago, when he was simply shocked by all the cockadoodie swears that ladies say. 

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So here's to you, Mike Huckabee, you relentless optimist, you:

[ Mother Jones ]