Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 17, 1990 TAG: 9005170638
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: From staff and wire reports
DATELINE: DALLAS LENGTH: Medium
Bush was invited to speak at the convention in New Orleans next month after a member of his staff told church officials he wanted to speak. The president declined because of political and gay rights controversies among the Baptists, according to Doug Wead, the president's religion liaison.
Moderate Baptists apparently complained that the president's appearance would be a political coup for the denomination's ultraconservative faction, Wead said.
Ultraconservatives, including the Rev. Paige Patterson of Dallas, were outraged that Bush invited gay rights activists to the White House on April 24 for a ceremony when he signed legislation requiring that records be kept on "hate crimes" against gays and other groups.
"We have the dubious distinction of making everybody mad," Wead told The Dallas Morning News.
The Rev. Dwight Reighard, chairman of the convention committee that invited Bush, said the decision to cancel was the president's. Reighard said Bush was never "uninvited" and that there was no move on the part of his committee to do that.
Reighard said the announcement that Bush would not come was made to convention President Jerry Vines of Jacksonville, Fla. He said he assumed scheduling problems were the reason and that he felt Bush would have been welcomed by the convention.
Reighard acknowledged, however, that he has received some negative comments about the invitation - from some who felt it would be a political boon to the ultraconservative faction and from others who were felt such an invitation should not have gone to a non-Baptist. Bush is an Episcopalian.
"I never saw anything political about it," Beighard said. He described complaints about Bush not being a Baptist as "arrogant denominationalism," and said he wondered whether the complainers would have excluded Jesus Christ as a non-Baptist.
The Rev. Daniel Vestal, a moderate candidate for president of the denomination, said he was embarrassed by the whole affair.
"He's our president and he is always welcome," Vestal added.
More than 40,000 Southern Baptists are expected to attend the convention.
Some church officials told the newspaper that the underlying factor in the flap is that fundamentalists were upset that gay activists attended the White House ceremony in April.
"Obviously, he (the president) made a mistake," said Patterson. "I have mixed emotions about seeing him come (to the convention). His assumption that evangelicals would not vote for a Democrat is an erroneous assumption."
The aide said Bush was not aware that the gay activists had publicly called Roman Catholic Cardinal John O'Conner of New York a "Nazi" and had opposed conservative Republican candidates.
by CNB