New party blasts abortion, Clinton, Demos and GOP

Respect for life is prime issue for us, chairman says

By Jose Luis Sanchez Jr.
Deseret News
Copyright January 24, 1999

Murray, UT - Members of the recently formed United States Independent American Party and some of their out-of-state allies got together at Murray's City Hall Saturday morning to denounce abortion, immorality, President Clinton and both Democrats and Republicans.

"Respect for life. We want to make that a prime issue in whatever this party does," said Bangerter, the party's acting national chairman.

"We are not conservatives. We are independents. We don't want to conserve the welfare state," said Dan Hansen, chairman of the Independent American Party of Nevada and one of the speakers at several USIAP events this weekend.

"There are a lot of people who are frustrated because they don't see Democrats or Republicans representing the principles which made America great," said Phil Stringer, a Florida evangelist who also spoke at several party events. Stringer said the American people have "allowed the tragedy of abortion to continue because they have bought the myth that a baby in the womb is just a wad of unfeeling tissue."

The USIAP, which splintered from the American Party last May, drew 16 people to a dinner Friday evening and mostly members of the media to a press conference Saturday morning. However, Bangerter estimated based on past elections that the party has "several thousand" supports in Utah.

According to political science professor Richard Davis of Brigham young University, the American Party does not have sufficient support in Utah to allow them to influence the outcome of local elections. In the 1998 Senate race, Gary Van Horn, the party's candidate, got 3 percent of the vote.

At Saturday's press conference, the most withering remarks were reserved for President Clinton. Bangerter characterized Clinton as "depraved," and Hansen said the president had been "tied-in to the Chinese mafia since Arkansas" and accepted money from them in exchange for military secrets. That, said Hansen, makes Clinton a "traitor."

As for the Republicans, Hansen described them as "socialist party B" and accused U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch of "trying to sustain the Democratic administration."

Both Bangerter and Hansen decried what they described as the nation's moral decline, abetted by Hollywood movies that "desensitize young people to immorality and violence."