Nov 02, 2007  |  By: JOSHUA LYNSEN  | COMMENTS     

Just one week after criticizing Sen. Barack Obama’s ties to an “ex-gay” minister, supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) are downplaying her connection to anti-gay figures.

Obama was assailed last week for allowing gospel singer Donnie McClurkin to appear at a South Carolina campaign event, but the endorsement of Clinton by at least two anti-gay black ministers has so far not generated similar outrage.

“I don’t know if that’s the same as, ‘Here’s a microphone — you can speak for my campaign,’” said Ryan Wilson of the South Carolina Gay & Lesbian Pride Movement.

Some of Clinton’s gay supporters, along with unaligned gays such as Wilson, said they’re generally unconcerned that anti-gay ministers Bishop Eddie Long and Rev. Harold Mayberry are supporting the campaign.

Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta once marched against gay marriage and hosts an “ex-gay” ministry. Mayberry has preached against homosexuality to his First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Oakland, Calif.

In interviews this week, Wilson and others said they were not concerned that Clinton had accepted a $1,000 donation from Long or that she recently thanked Mayberry for “fighting for civil rights and equality,” because she has not allowed either minister to speak for the campaign.

“There is a very big difference,” said Peter Rosenstein, a Washington political activist who is on Clinton’s gay steering committee. “This doesn’t impact at all what I think about Sen. Clinton’s campaign.”

Alvin McEwen, 36, a gay man who led an opposition vigil Sunday outside Obama’s campaign event in South Carolina, agreed.

He said “there’s a whole big difference” between Clinton accepting a $1,000 donation from Long and Obama allowing a man who espouses “ugly things about gays and lesbians” to speak during a campaign event.

“I would say the Obama campaign crossed a line,” McEwen said. “They touted this man as speaking for the campaign.”

McEwen has not said which candidate he supports.

A spokesperson for the Clinton campaign said the candidate “has been very clear” that she supports policies that advance equality for gay Americans.

“But in campaigns, you can never expect all your supporters to agree with you 100 percent of the time,” said Jin Chon. “Hillary Clinton is a leader who will bring together people with differing opinions and have an honest and open dialogue to find common ground.”

Brad Luna, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson, said the organization had no plans to issue a statement regarding Clinton’s ties to Long and Mayberry.

He said the Obama campaign’s decision to let an “anti-gay reverend” headline a campaign event was “a unique situation,” but that HRC’s advice to Obama stands for Clinton, fellow candidate Sen. John Edwards and others.

“If it’s Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama or Sen. Edwards or whoever,” he said, “we would encourage them to seek out places to have discussions among their campaign supporters and try to bridge the gap between religious leaders who might not be as good on these issues as we’d like and their GLBT supporters.”

Obama’s campaign last week indicated it would do that, but declined to pull McClurkin, a Pentecostal minister, from the event. Campaign officials instead added to the event Rev. Andy Sidden, a gay United Church of Christ minister.

Sidden, who offered the campaign event’s opening prayer, said he did not cross paths with McClurkin.

“I have yet to actually meet him,” Sidden told the Blade. “We were kept apart — or at least we were apart. And I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.”

McClurkin claims to be “ex-gay.” According to HRC, McClurkin in 2003 accused gay Americans of “trying to kill our children” and in 2002 called homosexuality a “curse.”

When he took the stage Sunday, McClurkin said, “I’m going to say something that’s going to get me in trouble,” and in his ensuing comments noted that “God delivered me from homosexuality.”

The unsolicited comments were not well received. Jim Pickett, a longtime Obama supporter and advocacy director at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said he was “annoyed” by McClurkin’s remarks.

“That sits pretty badly with me,” he said. “There was no dialogue.”