Apr 11, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign this week sought to distance itself from the anti-gay rhetoric of controversial minister and Illinois state Sen. James Meeks (D), who reportedly provides spiritual guidance to Obama and will serve as a delegate for him at the Democratic National Convention.

Meeks has a long history of anti-gay remarks. In 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center placed Meeks among the “10 leading black religious voices in the anti-gay movement.” The center reported that Meeks used his church to launch petition drives for the Illinois Family Institute, a religion-based organization that praised him for “clearly understanding the threat of gay marriage.” The center also criticized Meeks for being allied with conservative groups Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and the Alliance Defense Fund.

Obama spokesperson Ben LaBolt, in response to questions about the relationship between Meeks and Obama, said the presidential candidate “has made it clear that he strongly rejects and condemns offensive and divisive statements that stand in the way of his goal of bringing the country together.”

LaBolt said Obama’s church has been inclusive of gays and works to fight HIV.


Meeks is not Obama’s pastor — that role belongs to Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago megachurch Trinity United Church of Christ. Wright’s fiery sermons led to Obama’s widely praised speech on race relations. But unlike Meeks, Wright is considered gay-friendly.

The Chicago Sun-Times in 2004 said Obama seeks spiritual counsel from Meeks. Gaywired.com, in a report last week, described Meeks, pastor of the 22,000-member megachurch Salem Baptist Church, as “a long-time political ally to the Democratic frontrunner.”

But at least one source familiar with Obama said Meeks and the presidential candidate did not always see eye-to-eye during their state Senate careers.

Rick Garcia, political director of Equality Illinois, a Chicago-based gay rights group, recalled an incident in 2005 when Obama and Meeks engaged in a “heated, animated conversation” in a stairway at the Illinois capitol over a statewide gay non-discrimination bill. Obama, then a state senator, was a co-sponsor of the bill and was “speaking very forcefully” with Meeks about the pastor’s opposition to the bill, according to Garcia.

“[Obama] didn’t do that because I was standing there — because he didn’t know I was there — I just kind of came upon it,” Garcia said in an interview with the Blade.

Illinois approved the non-discrimination bill, which went into effect in 2006. Meeks was one of the few Democrats and the only black legislator to vote against the bill, Garcia said.

A 2006 Chicago Sun-Times article reported how Meeks’ Salem Baptist Church in Chicago staged a “Nights of Terror” event on Halloween that featured two “mincing” young men wearing body glitter who were supposed to be gay. The two men — in addition to a pedophile trolling the Internet for victims and a meditating Buddhist — were depicted as denizens of hell.

Meeks’ Senate office deferred comment to his church. The church did not respond to requests for comment. Repeated Blade requests for an interview with Obama have been turned down since last summer.

Garcia lambasted Meeks for buying “hook, line and sinker” into the anti-gay agenda” and called the senator “an embarrassment to the Illinois General Assembly and to anyone who believes in fairness and decency.”

“I wouldn’t support James Meeks for dog catcher,” he said.

Garcia recalled a time in 2005 when he asked Meeks to support the non-discrimination bill and questioned why Meeks would not support the measure when other Illinois religious groups were behind it.

Meeks responded that couldn’t support the measure because “I’m going to be on the cover of Christianity Today,” Garcia claimed.

H. Alexander Robinson, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, said he has heard reports of Meeks’ views and said they “seem inappropriate” and do not put him “in the mainstream of thought on how gay and lesbian people should be treated.”

Robinson said “it’s a legitimate question” to ask candidates about religious figures who are their associates to determine “the extent to which those individuals will have influence over their policymaking or the way in which they will approach advancing gay issues.”

Garcia said Meeks’ positions are “markedly different” from Obama’s and noted that each of the presidential candidates has relationships that could be considered troubling.

“On one hand we’re known by the company we keep, but on ...