Entertainer Pat Boone Now Making A Name For Himself As Right Wing Political Activist
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — He might be known for singing the song "April Love," but entertainer Pat Boone decidedly has his eyes on another month: specifically November.
November 2012, that is.
While millions know Boone, now 77, for covering black music, singing pop and Christian songs, 150 albums, enjoying a nearly six-decades-long career ... what many people don't know is that he is a tireless advocate for right wing causes and politicians.
Tireless and very outspoken. And increasingly more of both.
He helped organize the first Beverly Hills Tea Party rally and he's endorsed more than 90 congressional candidates. He also recorded robocalls that reached more than 7 million voters in battleground states during the 2010 midterms.
And with the 2012 race gearing up and more and more people announcing for the GOP, Boone is again throwing his political opinions into the ring.
Who better to sit down with Boone and discuss all things political, than KCAL9's Political Reporter Dave Bryan?
He talked with Boone about a myriad of things: the Tea Party, President Obama (Boone is clearly not a fan), his favorites for 2012 and controversial subjects like gay marriage and California's Prop 8.
Bryan asks him if he is still a Tea Party guy? Boone says, "Definitely. I do know that I'm perfectly in sync with the basic Tea Party tenets, which is small government, much smaller government. Get rid of half the bureaucracy that we have. And go back to free enterprise, job creation, lower taxes."
Boone has also made no secret of his dislike for President Obama. And Bryan asks who he would like to see run as the dream ticket in 2012 against him. "I would choose Mitt Romney with either Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain as his running mate," Boone says.
Regarding Obama, he adds, "He was raised and indoctrinated in the Muslim faith. And he professes to be a Christian. And I respect it. But he has no feelings for Israel."
Boone also charges Obama will grant amnesty to 14 million illegal immigrants in return for Latino votes in the next next election, despite the fact the President doesn't have the authority to unilaterally change immigration policy or grant amnesty without Congressional approval -- and most experts believe there is no way that could happen in time by next year's election.
Still, Boone says, "He's planning to, even by executive order, planning to not only grant amnesty but full priveledges, education and hospital, to 14 million people who are here illegally, because they'll vote for him. It's not because it's right. Not because it's Constitutional or even legal."
In the past, Boone''s defended the Vietnam war, Mel Gibson (after his anti-Semitic rant), called the theory of evolution "absurd" and "nonsensical" and has reportedly compared liberals to cancer calling them "black filthy cells." While he is no supporter of President Obama's, Boone has suggested several times that anyone who didn't support President Bush should have their patriotism questioned.
But Boone's most controversial stands, perhaps, come on the subject of same sex marriage and California's Prop 8 which banned gay marriage in the state.
In 2007, in robocalls for a GOP candidate in Kentucky, he charged the Democratic candidate with advancing a gay agenda and asked voters there, if they "want to turn Kentucky into San Francisco."
A year later, he compared the angry protests against Prop 8 with terrorist bombings in Mumbai that killed 170 people. A gay right's leader called that comparison a "new low" in anti-gay hate speech.
Boone says now, "There can be civil unions. There can be other arrangements. You can grant priviledges. But let marriage be marriage as it has always been."
