Apr 11, 2008  |  By: PETER ROSENSTEIN  | COMMENTS     

IT IS AMAZING that Barack Obama supporters continue to excuse his connections to anti-gay figures, yet attack Clinton for hers. We are not responsible for the words or actions of our friends, but we should be held accountable for how we react to those words and actions.

There were two columns in the April 4 Blade about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. One, written by Don George, argued we shouldn’t judge Wright by a “few minutes of regrettable speech.” The other was by David Pitts that said Obama’s reaction to Wright “proves Obama has the judgment to be president.”

I question the premise of both those statements and add that Obama has another pastor problem — Rev. James Meeks. Do we give him another pass here and applaud his great judgment again? Do we find an excuse for Meeks’ words as well?

Meeks is an Illinois State Senator who also serves as the pastor of Chicago’s 22,000-member Salem Baptist Church.

In a column on GayWired.com, Duane Wells gives a great chronology of Obama’s friendship with Meeks. Wells reported that Meeks was named in 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of the “10 leading black religious voices in the anti-gay movement.” He was also cited as a key member of Chicago’s “Gatekeepers” network, an interracial group of evangelical ministers who strive to erase the division between church and state and as a “stalwart anti-gay activist … [who] used his House of Hope mega-church to launch petition drives for the Illinois Family Institute, a ‘family values’ pressure group that lauded Meeks for his leading African Americans in “clearly understanding the threat of gay marriage.”

I DON’T ASCRIBE Meeks’ beliefs or words to Obama just as I don’t ascribe Wright’s beliefs or words to Obama. But in both cases I do question the judgment of a man running for president who wouldn’t separate himself from those men and their words prior to deciding to run or understand how those words would be perceived. The Chicago Sun-Times reported in 2004 that Obama regularly seeks out Meeks for “spiritual counsel,” something Obama never challenged. I am concerned about Obama’s judgment if these are the people from whom he seeks spiritual counsel and mentoring.

Why is it that some in the GLBT community can excuse Obama’s lapses in areas that impact people’s lives every day, and yet Obama supporters can’t seem to get over Hillary Clinton’s lapse in judgment in exaggerating, or misrepresenting, the danger she faced in Bosnia. Her trip was lauded almost universally when she went to that war-torn country in 1996, to thank our military men and women for their service.

THERE SEEMS TO be a continuing double standard here for what we will hold candidates accountable for and clearly what we think about their basic judgment. As a Clinton supporter I was upset that she felt the need to exaggerate the Bosnia danger. But I had the same disappointment when Obama exaggerated his work in the Senate, claiming to pass a bill that never got passed and claiming to be a bigger part of a bi-partisan coalition in the Senate than he was. But then neither the Clinton lapse on Bosnia, nor Obama’s lapse on the Senate issues is really that important.

But when we are talking about racist and homophobic statements by two pastors that the candidate says he has been close to for years and considers spiritual counselors, who he worships with, that to me is a real problem in judgment that may impact me if he is elected. It concerns me that he may be beholden to these men and others who share their views. While I am concerned about who contributes money to both Clinton and Obama, I am more concerned about the people they consider close personal friends and counselors.

It is time that we called on Obama to do more than make a great speech on race relations, which he did, and call on him to say that he will not take his spiritual counsel from people with such repugnant views.

I don’t yet feel confident that Obama will take this next step. I support Hillary Clinton, who with all her real and perceived faults doesn’t have those kinds of lapses in judgment. If Obama ends up the nominee of the Democratic Party he will have to make real moves in this area to try to unite the party before he can attempt to try to unite our nation as he claims he wants to do.

The views and words of both Wright and Meeks don’t belong anywhere near the White House.