January 21, 2008

Barack Obama and Kirbyjon Caldwell: Somebody’s Fibbing (Maybe Everybody)

1. Kirbyjon Caldwell — spiritual adviser to George W. Bush, pastor of Houston’s Windsor Village United Methodist Church, and senior pastor of “ex-gay” brainwashing program Metanoia Ministries — announces his endorsement for Barack Obama, and says he plans to campaign for Obama, apparently with the blessings of the Obama campaign: “I have been in contact with the Obama campaign team,” he said. “I will be making visits on his behalf.”

2. Gay folks and our allies go ballistic. Especially after the Donnie McClurkin flap.

3. I receive an email from a reader called “dbdors” whose panties are all in a twist because the link to Caldwell’s anti-gay ministry page (in this post) doesn’t work. Twisted-Panty Reader accuses me of lying, and concludes, predictably, that I must just be a Hillary supporter anyway:

It is a sad day in America when people resort to lies and plain fraud to discredit someone becasue of their choice of canditate.

Could you please explain why I cannot link to this website via www.kingdombuilders.com??? When I go to “care groups”, there is no such site.

Why is it that a Google search brings back a bad link? I know, it’s because you made this up!!

Why is it that I can’t register for the blog and leave a comment? I know, you don’t want any facts posted!!!

You want Hillary elected really bad don’t you!!

I read the email out loud to my better half, and as soon as we finish laughing, I reply to the Obamabot, mostly because I want to know what the heck “care groups” are. (So far, my hysterical little correspondent hasn’t responded.) I also explain that s/he did just leave a comment. Duh!

(P.S. to “dbdors”: You should be grateful I don’t sue your butt off for libel, twerp.)

4. I check the link to Caldwell’s anti-gay ministry page, and find it missing. Or, more accurately, it’s been scrubbed — deleted, suicided, tossed into the memory hole, gone — *poof!* — as nonexistent as Obama’s plan for a workable healthcare system.

5. Meanwhile, Matt Stoller notices the same thing.

6. But, thanks to the wonders of The Wayback Machine, I resurrect the original page from the dead. Some of the images are broken, so I check the properties of each broken image, figure out its original URL, copy the missing images directly from the live Kingdombuilders site, and reconstruct the page completely. I then tuck away the reconstructed page in case it’s no longer available on The Wayback Machine.

I also discover that the text of the original page is still on the Kingdombuilders site, in PDF form. (I save a copy of that, too.)

I also discover that a linked MSN Group (which may or may not have been affiliated with Caldwell’s church — but they liked it enough to link it), “The African American Recovery Corner” — has also mysteriously vanished.

Still, a directory listing at CrossDaily.com shows us the description of the group, presumably submitted by whoever ran it:

Site URL: http://groups.msn.com/TheAfricanAmericanRecoveryKornerTheArk
Title: The African American Recovery Korner
Description: An Christian support group for those seeking freedom from homosexuality. Although we believe that no one chooses to have homosexual desires, we do believe that you can choose to change your identity.
Top Category: Ministries & Organizations
Subcategory: Support Groups
City: Riverside
State/Prov./Region: California
Country: United States
Start Date: February 2, 2006 (719 days)…

(Heh… Couldn’t get enough momentum to keep your self-loathing homophobe group going a whole year, eh? *snort*)

I decide to search for other scrubbed pages, but before I start, I see that, in the meantime…

7. John Aravosis writes about the Caldwell dust-up, but concludes that there’s nothing to see here, so move along — and adds that “on this one we can give him [Obama] a pass” (I disagree, but I’ll take that up some other time):

I’ve talked to the Obama campaign about this, and they assure me of a few things:

1. Caldwell has not, and will not, be asked to do anything for the campaign (and this means, we hope, that Obama won’t be doing appearances with the man any time soon).

2. Caldwell was simply wrong when he told the papers this weekend that the campaign asked him to travel around the country on their behalf. In other words, Caldwell was freelancing when he called the paper for an interview.

My Skept-O-Meter is tweaked. I don’t doubt a word John says, but something smells fishy, and it’s coming from the Obama camp — where the people who run things either have a very short memory, or think you do. From the Washington Post, October 29, 2007:

“He’s more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ,” said Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Houston pastor who was on the tour and is backing on Obama.

The “he” Caldwell was talking about was Barack Obama. The “tour” was — you guessed it — Obama’s “Embrace the ~~Homophobia~~ Change” gospel tour.

“So?” the Obamaites will cry in unison. “It was one concert! Caldwell probably just got all fired up over Obama and went too far in saying he was ‘campaigning’ for Obama, when he’s never campaigned for him before!”

“Then,” I’ll respond, “I guess you’d better write to Washington Times reporter Christina Bellantoni and ask her if she was lying when she wrote this on December 3, 2007 — after the gospel tour, and before the South Carolina primaries”:

Religious leaders to hold Obama event

I hear that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign will be doing a big event in Charleston, S.C., with several prominent black religious leaders in the morning.

Among them will be Kirbyjon Caldwell, the Methodist minister who delivered the inaugural prayer for President Bush and is a longtime friend and spiritual adviser to the president. Mr. Caldwell has been campaigning for Obama all year.

Ahem.

No, we’re not done with this Obama-Caldwell matter yet. There are more interesting things I’ll share with you shortly, but I want to get this entry up now.

I tell you, ‘though: The more I dig, the curiouser and curiouser this story gets.

Stay tuned.

Posted by: Sapphocrat