Adams: We did bad job probing rev. for panel

Mayor Adams conceded Friday that his team should have done a better job at vetting the record of an education adviser he fired earlier this week after the Daily News exposed her anti-gay beliefs.

Speaking at an unrelated press conference in Brooklyn, Adams said Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne’s homophobic screeds did not surface during his administration’s internal screening process before she was appointed earlier this week as a member of his Panel for Educational Policy.

“The information did not come up in the vetting,” Adams said, “and I thank whomever we received it from in the press that shared it with us, and I just made the determination that the writing was not in line ... and I made the decision.”

Barrett-Layne (photo), who runs the Reach Out and Touch Ministries on Staten Island, was removed from the education panel within hours of being hired Tuesday after The News reported that she expressed extreme anti-LGBTQ views — including equating homosexuality to pedophilia — in several books she wrote.

LGBTQ advocates welcomed Adams’ swift axing of Barrett-Layne, but have questioned how he justifies giving her the boot while letting three other Christian pastors with histories of anti-gay views keep their jobs in his administration.

Asked about that dichotomy Friday, Adams suggested he’s letting the three other pastors — all of whom are men — stay on because they’ve apologized for their past rhetoric.

“The three that you’re talking about are longtime public figures that I had an opportunity throughout the campaign and after to sit down and speak with them, and I was clear that they apologized for their comments,” Adams said.

The mayor declined to say if he gave Barret-Layne an opportunity to apologize before axing her from the panel, which serves as the governing body of the Department of Education.

Among the three pastors who remain in Adams’ administration is former Bronx City Councilman Fernando Cabrera.Barrett-Layne, who was among nine appointments Adams made to the education panel, declined to say if she believes Adams’ decision to fire her was hypocritical given that Cabrera and the two other pastors remain in their posts. “I have no opinion at this time,” Barrett-Layne said when reached by phone Thursday before hanging up.