Fox News debate host pushes back on boos toward gay soldier

Fox News host and GOP debate moderator Bret Baier pushed back on President Obama's criticism of Republicans "booing a service member in Iraq because they're gay" at a recent debate, saying that the few who booed represented a small minority of the audience.

"The audience was 5,500 — huge, huge audience — and the boos on that gay soldier may have been two people, maybe three, out of 5,500," Baier said Monday on "Kilmeade and Friends" radio show.

The host of "Special Report with Bret Baier" said that the booing sounded more substantial because of the acoustics of the theater.

"Now, [the booing] was loud, it was audible, it was a cavernous facility," he said. 'But I think it would be painting with a broad brush to say this crowd booed the gay soldier."

Baier said he believed that a similar phenomenon was at play during a CNN debate, where the crowd responded to a hypothetical question about what libertarian Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) would do were an uninsured man to suffer catastrophic injury.

"I think the same is true for the clapping of seeing the person die in Wolf Blitzer's debate," Baier said.

The booing of Stephen Hill, an openly gay service member serving in Iraq, has become a political hot potato for Republicans. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a candidate in the presidential race, later claimed that he could not hear the booing, but ultimately condemned the jeers. Former Govs. Gary Johnson (N.M.) and Jon Huntsman (Utah), also at the debate, later denounced the booing.

"If I have one regret from last evening, it’s that I didn’t stand up and say, you know, you’re booing a U.S. serviceman who is denied being able to express his sexual preference," Johnson said. "There’s something very, very wrong with that."

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