Mike Huckabee Defends Use of “Ick Factor” For Views On Gays (Updated With Video)

Former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is defending his use of the phrase “ick factor” to describe is opposition to gay marriage. He claims on Fox News Sunday he got the phrase from University of Chicago Professor Martha Nussbaum, but Nussbaum says she never used the phrase.

“That term comes from a gay magazine called The Edge in which the author, Joseph Erbentraut, interviewed professor Martha Nussbaum from — one of Barack Obama’s colleagues [from] The University of Chicago. She uses a term ‘projected disgust.’ He, in the interview, coined this phrase. It’s in the article that he wrote. It’s in the interview with her. That phrase was not mine. It is actually a phrase that exists within the gay community. But somehow it is okay if they talk about it but if someone else talks about it, it is off bounds,” explained Huckabee.

Nussbaum says the phrase is being misused by Huckabee.

“I have never used the phrase ‘ick factor’ in any of my three books dealing with the emotion of disgust, or in any articles,” Nussbaum said in an email quoted by news sources. “I use the term ‘projective disgust’ to characterize the disgust that many people feel when they imagine gay sex acts.”

She continued, “Projective disgust has its origin in a discomfort with one’s own body … including sexuality, and that, in a defense mechanism, disgust is then projected outward onto vulnerable groups who are characterized as hyperphysical and hypersexual. In this way, the uncomfortable people displace their discomfort onto others, who are then targeted for various forms of social discrimination.”

Gov. Huckabee “owes me a public apology,” Nussbaum concluded.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.