Source: Out.com, Evening Echo
Actor William Baldwin has launched a stinging attack on his younger brother Stephen's opposition to equal rights for same-sex couples.

'Usual Suspects' star Stephen, 41, is the only Republican member of the famous family, and his siblings despair of his conservative views.

Eldest brother Alec, has attempted to change Stephen's mind in the past, and he now has 44-year-old William on his back.

'Backdraft' actor William - who dates a transsexual onscreen in TV show 'Dirty Sexy Money' - tells Out.com that his brother Stephen might be striving for attention with his right-wing statements.

"I think that the only way he can get the sort of attention and to get that stroke to his ego is through, not his work as a Christian, but through his work as a political operative within the Christian political movement," William said.

But despite his highly publicized political statements, William said that Stephen"does not have a political bone in his body."

He called it a mystery that Stephen hadn't taken in any of the political education that was a staple of the dinner-table conversations at the Baldwin household.

"My father was a high school history and government teacher -- he was very sort of Kennedy-esque sitting around the dinner table," William said. "Stephen must have been smoking dope back then, because my brother Alec took it very seriously -- he went to university and studied political science and so did I. I interned on Capitol Hill, I worked on congressional staffs. But my brother Stephen becomes a Christian and the next thing you know he's stumping for Sam Brownback. And when Brownback got knocked out then he's stumping for Huckabee."

When he asked his brother about Brownback's positions on human rights and the environment, William said his brother was clueless.

"He was in Iowa campaigning for Sam Brownback and he could not answer; he hadn't read one position paper," William said. "He hides behind the Word and whenever you confront him he'll hide behind some verse. He'll say, “All that really matters to me is that the Lord said blah blah blah blah” and he'll fill in the blank.

He told Out's Bill Keith about a recent argument between the pair.

"I asked him: 'Do you think a gay couple should be married? And if not, do you think they deserve access to the same rights on a federal level and state level that you do?'"

William was clearly exasperated by his brother's response: "'Because God said and the Bible says that marriage is an institution that exists solely between a man and a woman, blah, blah, blah', and he falls behind that crap."

Full article: Baldwin brothers clash over gay rights issue | Evening Echo
Not His Brother's Keeper | Out.com