Religious right leader who allegedly felt that AIDS was 'God's punishment' now condemning James Talarico's take on the Bible

Democratic senatorial candidate James Talarico (first picture) has been condemned by religious right leader Gary Bauer (second picture) for his progressive take on the Bible.

Republicans and their allies in the religious right are apprehensive about November's senatorial election in Texas. The party has held the Texas senate seat for a long time. but there are now rumblings of a possible upset. 

The Democratic challenger, James Talarico, is gaining popularity due to what has been called his "progressive take" on Christianity. He emphasizes the values of Christianity which embodies kindness, love, and compassion.

 In comparison, the Republican challenger, state attorney general Ken Paxton is embracing a hardcore conservative take on Christianity which is popular with conservative evangelicals while juggling a sordid history of scandals.

Republicans and the religious right are ignoring Paxton's scandals while making comments either ridiculing Talarico or condemning his progressive view on Christianity. 

Take long time religious right leader Gary Bauer for example:

Religious Right activist Gary Bauer warns that Democrats are trying to "steal the Bible" by nominating James Talarico for the U.S. Senate in Texas: "They're trying to distort what the Bible says in order to use it to justify their far-left policies." pic.twitter.com/7EU5AlG408

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) June 8, 2026

I've written about Bauer on numerous occasions because I've felt that not enough attention has been paid to his history of weaponizing Christianity into a tool of hate, particularly against LGBTQ people. In that regard, Bauer deserves a special chapter all to himself. And it has to do with how he allegedly undermined fighting the AIDS crisis while working in the Reagan Administration.

The following is from a post I published on November 25, 2014, and I think it puts not only this senatorial race, but the idea of just who is misusing Scripture in perspective:

According to Right Wing Watch:

Anyone who is familiar with Gary Bauer's anti-gay extremism will not be surprised to learn that his bigotry goes way back. Just in time for World AIDS Day, we now know that when Bauer was working in the Reagan White House, he fought hard to keep gay people off the nation’s first AIDS commission.

Right Wing Watch published part of a memo he sent to Reagan regarding this:

 3. Millions of Americans try to raise their children to believe that homosexuality is immoral. In many states homosexual practices are illegal, including sodomy. For you to appoint a known homosexual to a Presidential Commission will give homosexuality a stamp of acceptability. It will drive a wedge between us and many of our socially conservative supporters. 

4. While it is true that homosexuals have been major victims of AIDS, they are also responsible for its spread. Recent students show the average gay man with AIDS has had over 150 different sexual partners in the previous 12 months. 

Bauer proposed instead appointing a relative of someone with AIDS, or a caregiver, or as a last resort, a “reformed” homosexual: “that is, someone not currently living a gay life style. We have identified several individuals that meet that criteria.”

 In the end, Reagan ignored Bauer’s pleadings and appointed Frank Lilly, an openly gay geneticist, to the Presidential Commission on the HIV Epidemic.

Right Wing Watch also goes on to say that Bauer undermined the fight against HIV/AIDS in the Reagan Administration by keeping then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop from gaining access to the Reagan and the cabinet after the president asked Koop to prepare a report on AIDS.

Bauer’s role as an anti-gay zealot in the Reagan White House was also revealed in "Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite" by D. Michael Lindsay.

As Kyle reported back in 2010, the book says Bauer interfered with the efforts of Surgeon General C. Everett Koop when he was tasked with drafting a report on AIDS for President Reagan:

 [In 1986] President Reagan asked the surgeon general to prepare a report on AIDS as the United States confirmed its ten-thousandth case. Leaders of the evangelical movement did not want Koop to write the report, nor did senior White House staffers who shared Koop's evangelical convictions. As Dr. Koop related to me, "Gary Bauer [Reagan's chief advisor on domestic policy] ... was my nemesis in Washington because he kept me from the president. He kept me from the cabinet and he set up a wall of enmity between me and most of the people that surrounded Reagan because he believed that anybody who had AIDS ought to die with it. That was God's punishment for them." 

It is also worth knowing that after leaving the Reagan Administration, Bauer became the first president of an anti-gay group we all know well - the Family Research Council. Under Bauer's leadership, the organization created an ugly catalogue of homophobic lies and cherry-picked science which eventually led it to be designated in 2010 as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.