Expertinent is a regular Stumper column featuring interviews with experts on the news of the day. 

Poor Mike Huckabee. He can't catch a break these days--at least not with the press. (The polls: different story.)

First it's ethics complaints. Then AIDS. Then the parole of a once (and future) rapist/murderer. Then alleged payoffs from Big Tobacco. All while sustaining attacks from his Republican rivals on immigration, taxes and crime. It's almost enough to get a guy eating corndogs again.

The latest fuel on the fire: his views on marriage. In June 1998, the Southern Baptist convention amended its official statement of beliefs for the first time in 35 years to declare that "a wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband." And Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister then serving as governor of Arkansas, signed a full-page ad in USA Today in support of the statement (along with 129 other evangelical leaders). Now, as the New York Post so poetically puts it, "HOLY HUCKABEE FACES SNIT OVER 'GALS, SUBMIT.'" DailyKos and Andrew Sullivan agree.

With non-Baptist ears hearing the SBC statement as "do whatever your husband says"--a "Father Knows Best" (if not "Flintstones") philosophy--it seems fair to ask what "submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband" actually means to a Southern Baptist like Huckabee. Seeking context, I called up Roger S. Oldham, the SBC's vice president for convention relations. Here's what he had to say on the subject:

Mike Huckabee and his wife in signing this ad in 1998 were reflecting their commitment to their core religious values as revealed in the Bible.

With the exception of the word graciously, this is language coming right out of the Biblical text Ephesians V. It is an imperative addressed to the wife. It's not an imperative addressed to the husband. In other words, the man doesn't walk around and say, "Well, you're supposed to be submissive to me." It's not a club. Subordination is not subjugation, nor is it a statement of inferiority. And "servant," by the way, is not directed toward the woman. It's directed toward the man. She is submitting to the "servant leadership" of him. He is the one who is in the role of servant.

Now, there's no doubt that there has been abuse in interpreting the Ephesians V text. There have been those over the years who have read it that the husband is to keep his wife in constant remembrance that she's to be submissive.

But ideally the Ephesians V family is a family in which there is mutual submission to one another in the fear of the Lord. Therefore, when there are matters of discussion, both husband and wife converse with each other, seeking to find consensus. In those rare instances where consensus is not reached, the wife says, "Okay, you have the responsibility and accountability to stand before God one day and give an account of the decision you're going to make. But I--voluntarily--submit to your leadership is this instance." Now, when that happens, what that does is frees the husband up. He's no longer arguing with his wife. He now has to stand before God.

Sure, that's softer than "submit." But, in the end, the man still gets the upper hand--meaning there's still considerable room for controversy.

How will Huckabee's views on marriage play politically? We know it won't disturb the evangelicals boosting his primary bid. In fact, as an affirmation of faith-based family values, it's probably a plus (especially if Huckabee again calls criticism on this issue an attack on his faith, as he did in 1998).

But much of America might see such strict adherence to Biblical doctrine as sort of extreme, which (along with Huckabee's other "issues") could cause him trouble in the general election. It's one thing to be a man of faith. Most people appreciate that. It's another to say that a wife should agree to give her husband the last word.

I know a lot of "gals" who would disagree.