Gordon Howie's Pastor Declines to Endorse

Mr. Kurtz points us toward Mary Garrigan's report on how Gordon Howie's political pulpit publicity stunt is working out. She finds one pastor who has joined the South Dakota Republican guberatorial candidate's lawbreaking crusade. She finds six local religious leaders who say they likely or definitely won't... including Howie's own pastor:

Even Howie's own pastor, Bishop Lorenzo Kelly at Faith Temple Church in Rapid City, said he has no plans to endorse his friend from the pulpit. "I have encouraged our people to be participants in the political arena and showed them the scriptures that back it up," Kelly said. "But I have not from the pulpit endorsed him. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't put my church in jeopardy of anything" [Mary Garrigan, "Pastors Divided over Howie's Pulpit Challenge," Rapid City Journal, 2010.05.24].

Even coconut transplant and apparent Howie spokesman Pastor Scott Craig, who sends out the press releases on Howie's church-state stuntwork and urges pastors to let the Howie campaign co-opt sermons, has not yet said on the record that he has endorsed Gordon Howie on church time.