Clinton Under Fire for Association with African Church

When you run for president, everything is under the microscope. So it’s likely that Hillary Clinton’s campaign team saw this coming. But the string of revelations and allegations about dubious charitable dealings cannot be good for the candidate’s campaign.

But now it’s gotten worse for the former Secretary of State. Until now, the allegations of charitable wrongdoing or malfeasance were easy for supporters to laugh off as dirty politics. Sure, the opposition in the media and on the campaign would get their shots in, but there was no proof to any of the alleged wrongdoing that tied it directly to Clinton.

But this latest round of allegations has been proven, and this time, it’s Hillary’s supporters that are upset. According to reports, the Clinton Foundation accepted up to $10 million from an African church that has made a habit of condemning gays, calling homosexuals “devils” and comparing homosexual behavior to bestiality.

While, for many candidates, this association may not be problematic, to date Ms. Clinton has made her support for gay marriage central to her social platform. In fact, her initial campaign commercial featured the marriage of a same-sex couple.
This all might be just more campaign season fodder for the talking heads if not for the extreme positions taken by this particular major donor. In addition to calling gays “devils,” the church also compared engaging in homosexuality to human trafficking. Given the nature of the very public extreme views, this may very well be the salvo that forces Ms. Clinton to comment publicly about the allegations of impropriety related to her charitable foundation. It’s one thing to have people who won’t vote for you up in arms. But when your connections disparage and condemn the very people you hope form the base of your support, it’s not a bad idea to get control of the message.

Ms. Clinton could say this is nothing more than a poor attempt at guilt by association. She accepted the donations through her foundation in goodwill, hoping to do some good in the world. That might be all it takes to turn this around, but probably not. At some point, in order to assuage doubts in her constituents, Ms. Clinton will need to come out against the extreme positions of this major donor. A tough eggshell trail to walk, to be sure.