October 5, 2008

The Radical Right-Winger in Bed with San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed

This week’s MetroActive features a fascinating, most revealing look at Larry Pegram, the San Jose City councilmember turned radical Christian evangelist, who has made it his life’s mission to grind LGBT Americans under the heel of his jackboot. Nothing escapes Larry’s crosshairs, even if it means “interfering with the Day of Silence.”

A must-read — that is, if you care about the insidious encroachment of anti-democratic religious extremism in the San Jose power structure… which is not so different from the Christofascist takeover of Wasilla, Alaska. The only real difference: San Jose is much bigger than Wasilla, so change occurs more slowly.

But this is a change good Americans don’t want.

Missionary Man

Inside the Church on the Hill in San Jose, hundreds of Christians gather before the pulpit, fixated on the one subject that’s rocked the religious community this year: gay marriage. It’s a final attempt to mobilize the local Christian vote on Proposition 8, the statewide gay marriage ban going before voters in November. …

“Do we support homosexual marriage?” one speaker yells to the crowd.

“No!” the group shouts back, the echo ringing through the church.

The man behind this rally scene last Sunday is Silicon Valley’s Larry Pegram. The former San Jose Councilman-turned Christian political activist has long been a flickering presence in South Bay politics, stepping out on issues that run against his “values” agenda, especially those advancing equal status for same-sex partners.

The unapologetic Pegram, also a former cop, has been positioning himself against the gay community’s political agenda for years, dating back to his term on the city council in the 1970s when he voted against a gay event being organized in San Jose. As the gay community has progressed with its civil rights agenda, Pegram, 63, has remained unwavering in his convictions against granting new legal rights to gays and lesbians.

Three decades after his council term, Pegram founded his own Christian organization, the Values Advocacy Council, which has been out front on local issues, particularly same-sex marriage. …

“We feel very strongly that marriage for 5,000 years has been defined as being between a man and a woman, and we are not sure that this rush to recognize same-sex marriage is all that prudent,” Pegram says. “It’s the beginning of the destruction of families as we know it.” …

Pegram has stayed out front on this culture war even when it has weakened his position as he struggles for his Values Advocacy Council to gain a deeper political foothold in a liberal bastion like the South Bay. …

Religious and conservative leaders were infuriated when the California Supreme Court in May ruled to legalize gay marriage; they immediately launched the effort that led to Prop 8. Pegram’s group worked the local campaign to get the measure on the November ballot; they gathered and sent off more than 35,000 signatures in favor of placing a gay marriage ban on the November ballot.

Since then, he’s worked to unite church leaders on the issue. He’s hosted events, bringing prominent church leaders to speak to members about the “Armageddon of marriage.”

Win or lose the Proposition 8 battle, you can bet this isn’t Pegram’s last fight. …

In 1977, Pegram cast his first anti-gay vote. Members of the San Jose gay community came to City Hall, asking for permission to host a gay event…

In 2003, he joined his pastor from Venture Christian to establish the nonprofit Values Advocacy Council, giving Christian conservatives a chance to shape public policy with a “values” agenda. …

In 2004, Pegram and his Values Advocacy Council led a charge to recall Mayor Ron Gonzales after the city voted in favor of same-sex benefits for city employees and to recognize same-sex marriages performed in San Francisco. …

With a $200,000 annual budget, Pegram has been building his membership (there are some 10,000 families listed in their database) over the last five years, hosting events that have been slowly unifying Christian leaders and megachurches in the South Bay. Probably his greatest political mark has been publishing a “values voter guide,” a questionnaire local candidates fill out that places them “in” or “out” of the values camp on hot-button issues like homosexuality and abortion.

As the organization grows, Pegram says, they will probably get more involved in identifying conservative candidates to run for office. …

Pegram doesn’t particularly have much pull with the majority of Democrats in the South Bay—except perhaps one. There have been whispers about Pegram’s personal and political connection to Mayor Chuck Reed…

The two go back to the days when Pegram was on the council… Despite Pegram’s reputation as a religious extremist, Reed has kept his ties with him. Reed has been spotted speaking at Pegram’s Values Advocacy Council lunches and National Day of Prayer events. The two have also been known to attend church services together, according to Reed. …