An activist group has charged House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt,
D-Mo. with pressuring local television stations into removing
ads
aired by his Republican opponent showing Gephardt’s commitments to “radical homosexuals.”
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| House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo. |
The charges, made by Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, Chairman of the
Traditional Values Coalition, were leveled in a statement issued by his group on Thursday.
Sheldon called upon Gephardt to come clean on what he calls the congressman’s intent to facilitate passage of the radical homosexual agenda in Congress if he becomes Speaker of the House after the Nov. 7 elections — a position to which he will likely be appointed if Democrats win control of the House from Republicans.
Gephardt is running a tight race in Missouri’s Third District against Republican challenger
Bill Federer of St. Louis. In other ads, Gephardt has used the images of guns and the specter of Federer’s ideas about eliminating key federal bureaucracies as “too extreme for Missouri.”
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| Bill Federer, GOP challenger to Gephardt |
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Gephardt has been trying to hide his relationship with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, but he should be honest with the voters in his district,” Sheldon said. “I am disappointed that the television stations were so easily intimidated by Gephardt and his radical homosexual allies.”
Sheldon said Gephardt contacted St. Louis TV stations and was successful in getting political ads pulled that were aired by the Federer campaign. In the ads, portions of a speech Gephardt gave at a NGLTF dinner last October were shown.
“If the majority changes in the year 2000 and I have anything to say about it, I can assure you that these measures, that make good sense and represent the right values for America, will be on the agenda and will be passed,” Gephardt was heard in the ads telling the NGLTF audience.
“Voters in Gephardt’s district have a right to see his remarks on TV if they’re to make an informed choice on November 7,” said Sheldon. “Why is Gephardt trying to censor his own remarks? If he is proud of his support of the homosexual agenda, why is he trying to quash Federer’s campaign ad?”
The Traditional Values Coalition said the NGLTF’s agenda includes legislation promoting or approving of — on the federal level — homosexual marriage, homosexuals in the Boy Scouts, government-funded needle exchange programs for drug addicts, homosexual recruitment programs in the public schools — which, Sheldon said, would be “a boon to North American Man-Boy Love Association’s network of pedophiles” — and opposition to any law that criminalizes the purposeful transmission of AIDS.
“Apparently, homosexuals believe that sexual pleasure trumps the logic of punishing people who knowingly transmit AIDS,” Sheldon said.
Gephardt’s Missouri campaign headquarters did not return calls yesterday.
“If the Democrats gain control of Congress, Gephardt as Speaker will pass the radical homosexual agenda. Every voter in America should know this fact,” said Sheldon. “Why is Gephardt afraid of a fully informed electorate?”
