Actor-director-author Stephen Baldwin
has announced that he's “hanging up my political shoes.”
“I am here to announce, officially,
on HuffPost, that I am no longer a political freakdaddy,” Baldwin
said in a
HuffPost Live! interview. “I am hanging up my political
shoes.”
Baldwin, who details becoming a
born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks in his 2006 memoir The
Unusual Suspect, explained that
he was “bored” with mixing politics and religion.
“I'm
exhausted and bored with the whole thing. So I'm just going to be my
little Stephen B. slash wanna-be Billy Graham guy,” Baldwin, 47,
added.
But when asked
about his upcoming appearance at the Rising from the Ashes
conference – which, according to its website, advocates for
“freedom from homosexuality through Jesus Christ” – Baldwin
defended his participation.
The conference is “an opportunity for
people who are unsure … to have a conversation about [which]
direction they want to go,” Baldwin said.
“I wouldn't say that my message is,
'You can pray the gay away.' Literally, some of my best friends in
the world are gay, and they know I'm evangelical and I know they're
gay, and we love each other and respect each other in that way.”
Rising
from the Ashes takes place October 31 – November 2 in
Greenville, South Carolina.