Wow. Somebody just left this comment for me, and we find out that Kerry defended his staffer, and did not fire her, nor was he wishy washy about it (the whole first part is written by Bill Donohue, so I have no idea if she was "gagged" or if they were "in panic"):
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2007/2/13/18310/1890/82#c82Bill Donohue's recent interventions in the Edwards campaign reminded me of what happened in 2004 between Donohue, Kerry and Mara Vanderslice. Donohue writes about it in his 2004 report:
"Once we learned that the Kerry campaign had hired Mara Vanderslice as its Director of Religious Outreach, we immediately inquired about her. What we found about the 29 year-old was startling, so much so that we couldn't wait to tell everyone else.
Vanderslice was raised without any faith and didn't become an evangelical Christian until she attended Earlham College, a Quaker school known for its pacifism. When in college, she was active in the Earlham Socialist Alliance, a group that supports the convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal and openly embraces Marxism-Leninism. After graduating, Mara spoke at rallies held by ACT-UP, the anti-Catholic group that disrupted Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989 by spitting the Eucharist on the floor. In 2000, she practiced civil disobedience when she took to the streets of Seattle in a protest against the World Trade Organization. In 2002, she tried to shut down Washington, D.C. in a protest against the IMF and the World Bank.
As I said of Vanderslice in our news release of June 14, "Her resume is that of a person looking for a job working for Fidel Castro, not John Kerry." I then added, "Just wait until Catholics and Protestants learn who this lady really is."
That's when everything unraveled. As Julia Duin of the Washington Times wrote, the Kerry campaign was in a "panic mode" over Vanderslice's role. So what did they elect to do? They gagged her: she was strictly forbidden from speaking to the media. Had they fired her, at least she could have kept her dignity. But instead, they kept her on the payroll in an outreach position while denying her the right to reach out to anyone.
We couldn't believe what a blunder this was. Just ask yourself, would the Kerry campaign hire an anti-gay to conduct outreach efforts with the gay community? It would never happen. But people of faith were not exactly a priority group for the Kerry camp, so they never really bothered to cultivate them."
Vanderslice reflected on this after the 2004 election:
"Someone had forwarded
to me when the Catholic League put their release out. I remember the title said, "John Kerry's Religious Outreach Director Is a Real Gem." Naively, I actually thought maybe it was going to be someone saying nice things about what we were doing. But, you know, I didn't take it personally. I think the religious Right would have attacked anyone who signed up for this responsibility, for this position.
They believe that this is their territory, and they would have attacked anyone in the party that was stepping out to bring religious people into the party. It just showed how threatened they would be if the Democrats really started to make this a priority."