CAMPAIGN ’88 : Hatch Explains Barb

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), who delivered a speech calling the Democratic Party “the party of homosexuals,” said Friday that his comments were “somewhat of an inarticulate statement.”

“I don’t think gays are bad and I certainly don’t mean to criticize gays,” Hatch said on the CBS “This Morning” program. “I’m criticizing the radical left and, in some ways, the Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“But I don’t mean to criticize . . . all gays as being radical left,” Hatch said. “Nor do I . . . want to denigrate them by saying all gays are Democrats.”

Hatch made his controversial comments Wednesday when campaigning in St. George, Utah.

In that speech, he said Democrats “are the party of homosexuals. They are the party of abortion. They are the party that has fought school prayer every step of the way. They are the party that has basically, I think, denigrated a lot of the values that have made this country the greatest country in the world.”

But, in the CBS interview, Hatch said from Salt Lake City: “It was somewhat of an inarticulate statement that I really hadn’t realized that I made. The media lifted seven or eight words out of a 25-minute off-the-cuff speech where I criticize the Democrats for basically some of their values.”