Court rejects ‘birther’ challenge by former SBC officer

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court declined Feb. 2 to hear a challenge to Barack Obama’s election as president filed by plaintiffs including a former officer of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Justices declined to review an October ruling by California’s Third District Court of Appeals dismissing a lawsuit by former diplomat Alan Keyes and Wiley Drake, a Southern Baptist pastor who served as second vice president of the SBC in 2006–07, alleging that Obama does not qualify to be president because he is not a natural-born citizen.

Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church, Buena Park, Calif., ran for vice president of the United States as Keyes’ running mate on the American Independent ticket in California in the 2008 election. After the election Drake and Keyes filed a lawsuit, along with party official Markham Robinson, claiming election officials should not have allowed Obama’s name on the ballot without verifying that he met eligibility requirements to hold office.

The lawsuit is one of a number of so-called “birther” lawsuits against Obama’s election filed by individuals or groups who disbelieve the president’s claim that he was born in Hawaii to an American mother, thus establishing his citizenship.

Drake, Keyes and Robinson are also plaintiffs in a similar complaint in federal courts now pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.