SANTA ANA, Calif. (ABP) — A former Southern Baptist Convention official won a small legal victory July 13 when a federal judge said he would listen to the merits of a lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of Barack Obama's presidency.
Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed on Inauguration Day claiming that Obama is not constitutionally eligible to be president because he is not a "natural-born citizen" of the United States.
Drake, a former second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, claims damages as the vice presidential candidate of the American Independent Party in the 2008 election. He appeared on the California state ballot as the running mate of the party's presidential nominee, Alan Keyes.
The suit is one of a couple of dozen filed since last fall's election challenging the constitutional legitimacy of the Obama presidency. Most have been dismissed on technicalities, but a Los Angeles Times blog reports that U.S. District Judge David Carter allowed plaintiffs to fix their paperwork instead of throwing it out of court.
Former Southern Baptist Convention Wiley Drake is plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the election of President Obama.
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The lawsuit, one of several taken by California lawyer Orly Taitz, claims Obama was elected without his citizenship being proven or verified. It cites claims he was not born on U.S. soil and questions the authenticity of a Hawaiian "Certification of Live Birth" the Obama campaign posted online in an effort to quiet speculation about Obama's birthplace.
Taitz told WorldNetDaily.com that the judge issued no orders at the July 13 hearing but promised the case would move forward and there would be no dismissals based on "procedural issues."
"For the first time, we have a judge who's listening," she said.
Other observers said the judge's words were a long way from the case getting a full hearing in court and it may never get to that point.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office told the L.A. Times blog that lawyers on both sides tried prematurely to argue the merits of the case and Judge Carter told them it could easily be tied up for months on procedural technicalities and that a better approach would be to re-file the case so it could proceed without further delays.
Drake, who served one year as the SBC's second vice president in 2006-2007, made news recently when he said in a Fox News Radio interview that he was praying for Obama to die.
In subsequent interviews Drake said he prays "imprecatory" prayers because they are in the Bible, that they account for only about 2 percent of his prayer time and that he also prayed for the deaths of Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush and even fellow Southern Baptist preacher Rick Warren.
The attention earned Drake the distinction of "Worst Person in the World" on the July 13 "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" television program on MSNBC. A commentator often critical of the political right, Olbermann described Drake's idea as "kind of like voodoo."
"Now I don't go for this praying for other people's deaths myself, but if you do, this would seem to offer an unexpected opportunity for bipartisanship," Olbermann quipped. He suggested that combined supporters of Obama, Bush and Warren certainly must outnumber supporters of Drake.
"Certainly they can summon up more of these cumulative smites, plagues, pestilence and death prayers than he can," he said. "It just seems to be a simple question of math. So at prayer time remember the name Pastor Wiley Drake, today's but possibly soon-no-longer-to-be-eligible-for-a-repeat-victory, Worst Person in the World."
The Southern Poverty Law Center profiled Drake June 25 in a "hate watch" section on the organization's website that monitors the "radical right." Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention distanced themselves from Drake's comments, but the convention took no formal action against the former officer when it met June 23-24 in Louisville, Ky.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a Los Angeles author and political analyst with a weekly radio show, wrote in the American Chronicle about a conversation in which Drake appeared to be backing off from his previous comments.
Hutchinson said Drake told him that he did not actually pray for Obama's death but merely cited imprecatory prayer in a discussion about the murder of Kansas doctor George Tiller. "I was then asked if the imprecatory prayer for the death of evil doers could even extend to the president," Drake explained, according to Hutchinson. "I said yes. I was merely citing a prayer."
Drake said in the interview that he unfortunately called Obama by name. "I'm not wanting the president dead," he said. "The prayer for his death is not my prayer but comes from God."
In a June 2 interview on "The Alan Colmes Show," Drake was asked if he was directing imprecatory prayer at anyone other than Tiller. Drake hesitated before saying there were several.
"The usurper that is in the White House is one, B. Hussein Obama," Drake said in comments transcribed by Associated Baptist Press. Drake answered affirmatively to follow-up questions to clarify that he was indeed praying for the death of the president of the United States.
"If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that's correct," Drake said.
In the American Chronicle article, Hutchinson said Drake skirted the legal definition of a threat against the president by attributing the death prayer to God. Hutchinson said a federal law makes it a crime punishable by up to five years in prison to willfully threaten the president, and the Secret Service investigates about 1,500 such threats per year.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Previous related ABP stories:
Drake, former SBC officer, says he's praying for Obama to die (6/3)
African-American pastor says SBC leaders should repudiate Drake (6/4)
Former SBC officer says Tiller murder answer to prayer (6/3)
SBC spokesman disavows statements by former second VP (6/5)
SBC praises Obama's election, criticizes policies, in resolution (6/24)