Via HRC’s Back Story comes this clip of Mike Huckabee on last night’s Larry King Live.

On “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: “I probably would let the military make that decision. One thing I don’t think you need is a president who’s trying to tell the military how to run the military, other than set broad policy agenda. The Uniform Code of Military Conduct is the best way to handle that and I would leave it to — to those who run the military.”

On having a gay person in his administration: “Absolutely. Why not? People are competent because — not with anything to do with their sexual orientation. I have people who are homosexual that work for me in the governor’s office. And it was not a qualification. I think you should never (cut off)…”

On his AIDS quarantine remarks: “Well, and I said I think the word isolated. And would I say that today? No, of course not. We know so much more than we did. That was 1992 — 15 years ago. And I know some would say but we knew it then. But, you know, I talked to medical doctors back then and even who have said this to me now, we said we knew, but we weren’t absolutely, positively sure. And the information we were getting was from our government. And, frankly, a lot of people who weren’t trusting our government than anymore than are trusting it now. But would I say that today? No, I wouldn’t, absolutely not, because we do know better now. In fact, I’m committed, as president, to do more to help on both HIV and AIDS funding than we have done in the past, and even include HIV as part of the Medicaid coverage, because it’s consistent with the idea it’s better to prevent diseases than it is to treat them.”

Back Story has the full transcript, plus news that neither Ryan White’s mother or HRC has heard from the Huckabee campaign about his agreement to meet with Jeanne White-Ginder.

Huckabee’s remarks contrast starkly with comments from a book he wrote in 1998, which were recently unearthed.

Mother Jones reports:

Kidswhokill “In a 1998 book decrying American culture, Huckabee was no seeker of common ground. He drew stark lines, equating environmentalists with pornographers and homosexuality with pedophilia and necrophilia. He also declared that people who do not believe in God tend to be immoral and to engage in ‘destructive behavior.’ He drew a rather harsh picture of an American society starkly split between people of faith and those of a secular bent, with the latter being a direct and immediate threat to the nation…In Kids Who Kill, Huckabee argued that school shootings were the product of a society in decline, a decline marked (and caused) by abortion, pornography, media violence, out-of-wedlock sex, divorce, drug use, and, of course, homosexuality…In lamenting the “cultural conflicts” besetting the country, he wrote, ‘Abortion, environmentalism, AIDS, pornography, drug abuse, and homosexual activism have fragmented and polarized our communities.’ Why was he lumping environmentalism with activities he considered sinful? He did not explain further. A few pages later, Huckabee complained, ‘It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.’ Huckabee did not say what public endorsement of pedophilia or necrophilia he had in mind. But he did seem to be equating homosexuality with both.”