ABC’s Christiane Amanpour: “So, Gary Bauer, as you know, a series of politicians have used the Islamic center [near Ground Zero], have used sort of Islamophobia and scare tactics in their campaigns....My question is do you take any — after some of the loaded things that have been said, and we can play you any number of tapes, Mr. Bauer. Do you take any responsibility at all for, for instance, what happened in Murfreesboro [Tennessee, where a mosque was vandalized]?”

Former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer: “Are you serious? Absolutely not. I have never encouraged violence. I condemn violence.”

Amanpour: “You don’t think the rhetoric lays the groundwork for others?”

“Finally, tonight, as promised, a ‘Special Comment’ on the inaccurately described Ground Zero mosque. ‘They came first for the communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. And then they came for me and by that time, no one was left to speak up.’ Pastor Martin Niemoller’s words are well known....In quoting him, I make no direct comparison between the attempts to suppress the building of a Muslim religious center in downtown Manhattan and the unimaginable nightmare of the Holocaust. Such a comparison is ludicrous — at least, it is now.”

“There is a lot of hate speech, and it’s getting louder and more vicious....In these mosque protests, we’ve seen that hate speech take on a new and more venomous tinge....As somebody who I spoke to during the story told me, Islamophobia is now the accepted form of racism in this country.”

“It might be Islamophobia, Obamaphobia, or both, but when loud speakers are blaring ‘Born in the USA’ and signs say ‘No Clubhouse for Terrorists,’ it’s clear we aren’t just talking about a mosque anymore. There is a debate to be had about the sensitivity of building this center so close to Ground Zero. But we can not let fear and rage tear down the towers of our core American values.”