Huckabee stands by AIDS comment

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday he stands by his statement 15 years ago that AIDS patients should have been isolated.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," the former Arkansas governor said that at the time he made the statement is was not known the virus was not spread by casual contact.

"But what I'm not going to do is to go back and now try to change every story I've ever had. I'm going to simply say that that was exactly what I said. I don't run from it, don't recant from it," Huckabee said.

As a U.S. Senate candidate in 1992, Huckabee had said if the federal government wanted to address the AIDS crisis effectively it would take steps to isolate its carriers.

"I didn't say that we should quarantine," Huckabee said Sunday. "I said it was the first time in public health protocols that when we had an infectious disease and we really didn't know just how extensive and how dramatic it could be, and the impact of it, that we didn't isolate the carrier."

In 1992, Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, also called homosexuality "an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle."