Praying To A New God

I like to think of myself as a "not single issue" voter. I don't want to be one of those people who says "I can't vote for the Democrat because he's wrong on issue x" when on everything else, said candidate would be better than the alternative.  A Democrat has to be pretty bad before I'll entertain alternatives.. and no, I never vote Republican.

And of course, if anyone could test my resolve this, it would, naturally, be Barack Obama.

I've said before that I find Obama's never-quite-right candidacy frustrating, but events of the past couple of weeks have finished it for me - there's pretty much no way for me to vote for him now, and it's because of a surprisingly singular issue.

In case you don't know, I'm passing along the Donnie McClurkin fiasco. Decide for yourself.

McClurkin, a fairly successful gospel performer and minister, was given a starring role in a series of fundraisers for Obama , a series of gospel concerts clearly aimed at increasing Obama's outreach to African Americans.  As many have noted, Obama's failures to make substantial inroads in the community that one might expect to support him heavily (were it not, really, for Hillary Clinton, and the black community's support for Bill especially), has been one sign of his overall failure to reach his promise as a history-making candidate. 

(It's also a sign that no community, necessarily, should have its support taken for granted.)

McClurkin, as it turned out, caused an unexpected ruckus: unbeknownst apparently to the campaign, McClurkin has been fairly outspoken about his own decision to turn away from homosexuality, and has been a vocal advocate of religious "ex-gay" programs.  Protestors from South Carolina's gay community (believe me, those of us in the  coastal gay enclaves always gasp a little at the fact that openly gay people turn up in places like SC) showed up to picket the concert in Charleston, and Obama's campaign scrambled to undo the mess.

Well, sort of.  Rather than uninvite McClurkin, they went with a face saving alternative: Obama condemned McClurkin's stance publicly, and the campaign added a gay black minister to the lineup to do the evning's invocation.  Needless to say, that didn't mollify most anyone, and McClurkin went on that evening and once again said that he was not "antigay" that he simply thought it was "suffering"" that one could be "delivered from."

I hate to say it, but for me, like many other gay men (especially gay men of color) this is a no-brainer; Obama's half hearted attempt to have it all ways, only underlined who he thought was expendable in this debate, and just how hard he's pushing to win over churchgoing African Americans by soft pedaling their discomfort with things like homosexuality. And it would be one thing if Obama's discussion of gay issues was forthright enough to suggest McClurkin was a blip; but time and again, Obama has muddled clear statements about supporting gay rights with halfway rhetoric.  His fairly dismal performance at the Logo event, where he parsed his stance on gay marriage in a way that clarified nothing, and in the wake of McClurkin suggesting that we need to "listen to all sides" on gay issues.  Well no, we don't.

With Andrew Sullivan serving as Obama's gay defender, I doubt things will improve; I like Sullivan well enough, but he's always been an eccentric voice on gay issues, as likely to mangle it as not, and for someone as clearly in favor of gay marriage as Sullivan is, one has to expect more from him when other candidates are far more direct. Nor will it help the Obama campaign to advance the flimsy argument that their McClurkin troubles come from a Hillary Clinton smear operation - this mistake was theirs, and the outrage is real.

And it's not going to just go away. Few things - even marriage, really - quite so unify gay people as the revulsion for Ex-gays and the pain their programs cause for individuals and those who care about them. So many people I knew - particularly in more Southern communities, have struggled so much with the dilemma of reconciling religion and their gayness that I can't just stand by.  It took me years, as well, to find a balanced place where I can have a God, and a church, that accepts me, and my community, as I am, and we are. That Obama would give any quarter to a Donnie McClurkin to spread the poison that you can pray away the gay, that gay people who "choose" the "lifestyle" are choosing painful misery is unconscionable. Simply unconscionable.  And with it, he just lost my vote, for good.

Comments

[JoBiv]

Ha! Found YOU! My god we're cool...

[Redstar]

Wahoo, passion! I'm convinced. Grrrrr.....