Huckabee cancels church visit after sex-abuse victims protest
BY FRANK LOCKWOOD
Friday, January 25, 2008
After protests from clergy sex-abuse victims, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee yesterday dropped plans to preach at a Jacksonville, Fla., church that is embroiled in sex-abuse-related litigation.
“He’s not going there Sunday,” Huckabee spokesman Alice Stewart said, adding, “It was never confirmed in the first place.”
Instead of speaking at Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Huckabee hopes to find an available pulpit somewhere in the Florida Panhandle, she added.
Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, is also to preach Sunday morning at First Baptist Church in Orlando. The campaign initially planned to have Huckabee in Jacksonville on Sunday night.
The decision to cancel Trinity was welcomed by victims’ advocates.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” said Christa Brown, Baptist director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “It is good news, because it sends a message to the many wounded people from that church that [Huckabee ] won’t just ignore what happened there.”
Trinity Baptist Church, one of Jacksonville’s largest Baptist megachurches, has admitted that its former pastor, Bob Gray, committed “inappropriate and sinful actions.”
More than 20 women and at least one man stepped forward to accuse Gray of abusing them when they were children, the Florida Times-Union has reported.
Prosecutors charged Gray with six counts of capital sexual battery, but he died in November, shortly before his trial was to begin. He was 81.
Critics allege that church officials knew that Gray was a pedophile and failed to report him to authorities.
As of Thursday afternoon, Trinity’s Web site was still advertising Huckabee’s Sunday night sermon.
“Trinity shares common moral and spiritual values with Governor Huckabee and anticipates the message he will bring to the congregation and community in attendance,” it said.