Obama and the New Evangelical Movement

President Barack Obama may not be holding daily prayer sessions with the likes of James Dobson or Anthony Perkins, but the religious company that Obama is keeping these days certainly isn't kind toward the LGBT community. According to this article in today's NY Times, Obama has been in constant contact with five evangelical leaders, and for the most part, they all tow a tremendously conservative line when it comes to issues of LGBT rights.

So why can't President Obama, who as recently as 1996 "unequivocally" supported full marriage rights for same-sex couples, keep some religious company that supports full marriage equality for same-sex couples? From Maine to California, he'd have plenty of religious leaders to choose from. Instead, President Obama has embraced a new evangelical wing that instead of bolstering progressive values, believes in a version of centrist social justice that may be great on issues like poverty and the environment, but fails on some of the preeminent civil rights issues of today.

Among the ministers that Obama has been consulting with since his election include Bishop T.D. Jakes, who has called homosexuality a "brokenness" and has said that he wouldn't hire any LGBT person who was sexually active.  (Editorial note: Bishops Jakes's son was arrested in January after allegedly cruising for gay sex in a popular Dallas park.  While I feel for the son, I can't help but wonder if the turn toward down-low sexual gratification isn't a byproduct of growing up in a household where your father thinks all LGBT people are spiritually broken.)

Another minister with Obama's ear is Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Houston pastor and head of the Windsor Village United Methodist mega-church.  Caldwell's church has actively promoted an ex-gay ministry known as "Metanoia," which seeks to "help homosexuals understand with God's help that 'change [is] possible.'"

A third minister is Rev. Joel Hunter, the conservative pastor of Northland Church outside of Orlando.  Rev. Hunter was a former President of the Christian Coalition (until they outed him for being too soft on wedge social issues).  But Rev. Hunter has been an adamant supporter of discrimination when it comes to same-sex marriage, and as recently as October 2007 said that there could never be a compromise on the issue of faith and same-sex marriage - that same-sex marriage would never be OK in the eyes of God.

I'm sorry, but this all sounds like the type of religious consultation more befitting of Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee than the standard-bearer of the Democratic party.  Sure, Obama should feel free to talk to any religious leader he wants.  But the fact of the matter is that Obama has chosen to surround himself with a breed of "New Evangelical" that would rather cure LGBT people of their brokenness, or at the very minimum deny LGBT people the same rights and benefits afforded to straight people.

And that's a tragedy, especially given that there are a growing number of religious leaders speaking prophetically about marriage equality, and because Obama's own church (the United Church of Christ) believes in recognizing marriage equality.  What a missed opportunity for #44 to really infuse his politics and his religious beliefs with a sense of social justice rather than religious pragmatism.