US presidential hopeful Huckabee rates highest for family values - report

Top Republican contenders in the US presidential race were rated on their family values claim by a leading West Coast pro-family organisation in a report card released Wednesday.

California-based Campaign for Children and Families (CCF) compiled the Report Card on the Natural Family which graded six GOP candidates on their protection of the basic family unit.

The organisation reviewed the candidates' positions in published votes, policies, public statements and documents to see how they defended the natural family - a father, a mother, and their children. The greatest weight was given to actual votes, actions and policies rather than recent statements that differ from past policies, statements or actions, CCF explained.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Texas Congressman Ron Paul received the highest rating with seven out of a possible eight points. Senator John McCain of Arizona received four points, followed by former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee with three points. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was given the next to lowest rating, one point, by the pro-family organisation.

Surprisingly, self-proclaimed family values champion, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, received the lowest score of zero points by the pro-family group.

"While all of the leading Republican candidates claim to embrace family values, let the record show that they're marching to different drummers on marriage rights, adoption, schoolchildren, and the destructive 'LGBT' agenda," said CCF president Randy Thomasson.

The candidates were scored in the categories of protection of civil marriage rights for one man and one woman; protection of the natural family, the boy scouts, and school children; and support for adoption by both a father and mother.

Topics such as adoption by homosexual couples, hate crime laws, and homosexual education in public schools were specific subcategories used to grade the candidates.

The pro-family group said that the leading Democratic candidates, meanwhile, "support nearly all" of the homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual agenda.

"As always, what a candidate does means much more than what they say. Facts are stubborn things," Thomasson noted. The CCF president said he is a registered independent and will compare candidates from both major parties later this year.

The Campaign for Children and Families is a pro-family organisation that seeks to mobilise US citizens to support family values in the culture, media and government.