Bauer Finds DNC Intolerance Disappointing

by Chad Groneing
August 9, 2004

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(AgapePress) - A Christian activist and former presidential candidate was dismayed by the hateful statement a prominent Hollywood liberal directed against Christian conservatives at the recent Democratic convention -- and equally dismayed by the applause it garnered from Democratic political leaders.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, actor Alec Baldwin said he would leave the U.S. if George W. Bush was elected president. However, the film star did not keep that promise. Far from abandoning the American political scene, the liberal Baldwin has pursued a prominent role in it, even appearing on the podium at the Democrats' National Convention in Boston.

There, according to Cybercast News, Baldwin told his fellow Democrats that the Republican Party had been "hijacked by these fundamentalist wackos." The audience, including DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe, applauded.

Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families says he was greatly disappointed by the attitude of the Democrats. "And I think it would disappoint not only people like myself, who clearly, as a Republican [would disagree with it]," he says. "But also, I think it would disappoint Christian Democrats that are still in that party and who, I think, would be very upset to learn that, at the convention, that kind of rhetoric was tolerated and, in many cases, applauded."

The conservative pundit believes a serious problem exist for the Democratic Party, when it touts its own inclusivity and tolerant broad-mindedness yet applauds the sort of excluding and bigoted statements made by Baldwin.

That is not the reputation the Democrats have tried to cultivate in recent years. "Traditionally they've been, by their own words, the party of tolerance and the party in favor of equal opportunity," Bauer says. "Millions of well-meaning people have belonged to the Democratic Party over the years. My parents were Democrats, as were most of my relatives."

But that is not the face the Democrats showed at their 2004 convention, Bauer contends. There, they could be seen "applauding outward bigotry aimed at conservative Christians," he says, "and that's deeply disappointing."