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By Jack Nichols
Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer: Did he sin? |
Washington, D.C.—A presidential candidate's private life is fair game in
the media and this time the candidate who is discovering this the hard way,
is none other than Republican ticket hopeful and conservative family values
torchbearer, Gary Bauer.
Bauer, who has lined his entire career with blatant anti-gay,
anti-AIDS-remedy strategies, was forced by the rumor mill to hold a press conference
Wednesday to deny charges of adultery now plaguing his run for high office.
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Clearly distraught on camera, he proclaimed himself as one who has been entirely faithful to his wife
of 27 years, while she too, he insists, has been faithful to him.
Charlie Jarvis, Bauer's former National Campaign Manager, speaking on the
conservative Fox News station, said that Bauer was known to spend "hours and hours
and hours" behind a closed door with a "young single female" staffer. Bauer
also traveled alone with her, violating "Christian" behavioral standards
as they apply to married men.
Wired Strategies' John Aravosis addressed Bauer's inconsistency:
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"Interestingly," Aravosis writes, "Bauer responded to the charges by
saying he should not be held to such strict
standards of Christian morality. 'I am not a
minister...I am not a pastor,' Bauer said in his
defense.
"First," Aravosis points out, "the 'don't hold me accountable to your religious
beliefs' argument comes from a guy who demonizes
gay men and lesbians on a regular basis, all in
the name of his own religious beliefs. But then
when those beliefs come back to bite him in the
butt, all of a sudden he's a born-again liberal."
Bauer's former campaign manager, Jarvis, said that he and other Bauer staff
members saw Bauer as indulging "careless,reckless behavior." In the wake of
the Clinton-Lewinsky scandals of last year, Jarvis insisted, "that kind of activity"
opens Bauer to reproach. His campaign, Jarvis demanded, must not hint
"even a semblance of impropriety."
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Hatemonger Gary Bauer
Religious 'Messages of Love' Sound Exactly Like Hate
Family Research Council Attacks Moderate Republicans
Homophobic Hate-Monger Declares for U.S. Presidency
Related Sites:
Gary Bauer for President
Wired Strategies
GayToday does not endorse related sites.
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It was partly for this reason, says Jarvis, that he resigned from the Bauer
campaign and is now an aide for Republican Steve Forbes' second presidential campaign.
Though the Forbes campaign denies engaging in rumor-mongering, a bitter Bauer insinuated that Forbes,
his Republican opponent for the conservative religious vote, was engaging in a smear campaign.
Wired Strategies director further explains:
"Things get even fishier when you visit the Web
site of the Family Research Council (FRC), a far-
right political lobby founded by Bauer.
Did Bauer throw stones at a glass house? |
"FRC criticized the Clinton administration in a July
14, 1999 press release because the Defense
Department had the audacity to put married men and
women in close-proximity working conditions, when
we all know that leads to "adultery."
(Read the document at www.frc.org/press/071499.html ) |
"FRC railed at the time about: 'the realities of
putting young members of both sexes in close
proximity for extended periods potentially setting
them up for sexual misconduct. Adultery is a
crime'."
Aravosis laments Bauer's long-lived hypocrisy:
"For America's soldiers, or ministers, close
proximity equals adultery. Yet when Bauer, who is
on leave as president of FRC to follow his
presidential ambitions, is in close proximity to
young women he works with, we're supposed to look
the other way. Is Bauer suggesting that soldiers
are less faithful to their wives than the rest of
us? Or that men of the cloth are less adept at
following the Ten Commandments than he?
"It all comes down to the intolerant right trying
to have its cake and eat it too. Invoke the Bible
when you want to bash a queer, but God forbid
when your own intolerant code of conduct is applied
to you.
"Whether Bauer did or didn't cheat on his wife, he
finally knows what it feels like to be labeled
immoral simply because he didn't live up to
someone else's version of morality.
"Try them apples, Gary."
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Oral Majority's Bob Kunst, addressing Bauer's closed door forays, said:
"It appears that 9 of his 'staff' (not his rod) have resigned…
Can't imagine what he was 'doing' or getting 'done' in there but this sordid
episode based on Fox News reporting isn't making Bauer look the least bit
positive and in fact the more Bauer denies it, the more one believes he did
'something' as frightening as that might seem to the rest of us, who didn't
believe he was capable of anything like 'sex', not in the 'missionary
position'." |
Activist Bob Kunst, who led a protest against Bauer in Florida last year |
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