Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
After all of this Donnie McClurkin crap, I want to spotlight something positive about lgbts of color. And something which will make me laugh.
Openly gay black comedian, Sampson, manages to do it for me. He is funny, refreshing, and an excellent role model for lgbts of color. Keep an eye out for this guy. He is very talented.
The "ex-gay" gospel singer has been steadily making the rounds of the radio shows and Christian media after being unceremoniously dumped from Saturday's concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.
McClurkin was uninvited due to past comments he made regarding homosexuality, including implying that homosexuality is linked to pedophilia.
On Tuesday morning, he was on the Tom Joyner Morning Showexplaining his side of the story. It was a very sad interview because it was one-sided and totally inaccurate in a big respect. Joyner and co-interviewer Roland Martin pretty much did everything but reach into their pocket and hand McClurkin money for his troubles.
I found the interview extremely nauseating. But one exchange between Martin and McClurkin caught my attention. According to the transcript:
ROLAND MARTIN: Do you believe it’s fair, Donnie? I mean the
comments that gays and lesbians are upset about you made more than a
decade ago about formerly being gay, talking about it as being a sin.
You made those comments more than a decade ago. Is it fair for an
activist to, you know, a decade later to say, oh, because he made those
comments in that period he shouldn’t do something today here in 2013?
DONNIE MCCLURKIN: Well, it’s not fair, and it’s been an ongoing
battle. It’s been an ongoing political battle. But in fairness we’re
talking about a peace rally. And we’re talking about a group of people
who have been lobbying for a long time for equality and tolerance. But
now to have none concerning anybody else who said anything that is
against, or not through their agenda. I don’t have a problem.
But Martin is inaccurate. McClurkin's anti-gay rhetoric is more recent than a decade ago. According to Rod McCollum from his blog, Rod2.0 Beta:
And a portion of this is on video beginning at 6:17:
Now in all fairness, Martin - being the interviewer - is allowed to get some facts wrong. But wasn't it up to McClurkin to correct him?
As a matter of fact, I noticed that in the interview, McClurkin made no attempt to address specifically his comments about gays, except for to say the following:
You can’t call me a homophobic if I’ve been a homosexual. That’s
quite a stretch. But for them to think that it’s fair, or okay, or
tolerant, to uninvite someone simply because they have opposing views,
but have never said anything derogatory about them, just simply gave my
testimony about what happened with myself.
He also said:
I believe that (the Mayor) owes the City of D.C., an apology. He’s done a
disservice to the faith based community. And I can take the blow, but he
needs to be more concerned about his constituency. And to do something
like this at a Martin Luther King peace rally is totally against what
Martin Luther King stood for.
McClurkin should be aware that King also stood for honesty and before he continues to cling to his cross of martyrdom, he should practice a little himself.
When opponents like Jennifer Morse of NOM's Ruth Institute claim that they speak against marriage equality and lgbt rights because they supposedly love gays, keep the following Facebook comment in mind:
The American Family Association's One News Now is claiming that McClurkin may have grounds to sue via an anti-discrimination ordinance. Of course this is nonsense. McClurkin himself, in a recent video, is claiming that he was "threatened and bullied."
McClurkin never fully explained the controversy behind his Washington D.C. booking and only provides an oblique, cursory reference. "This is all about a stand that I took," said the gospel legend and Pentecostal minister. "But I was never was derogatory against any lifestyle."
Donnie McClurkin is a liar. His stance has been extremely derogatory. The video above is him at a the 2009 COGIC Youth Conference. McClurkin is having what he seems to think is a religiously infused train of thought about the problems in the black community
But check out 6:17 when he begins harping on "feminine men." Then he says the following:
"No, no no. Don't applaud like it's a bash. It's because we failed. We failed! We didn't father our children."
Then later in the video, starting at at 8:38, McClurkin talks about how he was molested when he was eight-years-old. It's an awful story which he proceeds to make worse by linking pedophilia to homosexuality. It's a vulgar, disgusting ramble which McClurkin seems to be saying that existence of gay men is due to a lack of good parents and an abundance of evil predators.
I don't care how much screaming or talking in tongues he
does, I don't care how "anointed" he is supposed to be, McClurkin doesn't know what he is talking about. My heart goes out to him. It was an awful thing what happened to him as a child but gay men are not the products of pedophilia or rape. It's an ugly thing to imply and for him to now claim that he has not been derogatory towards gays when we have the evidence on tape is sad.
As I said before, I had already given my opinion about McClurkin being uninvited. The 1963 March on Washington was coordinated and successfully engineered by an openly gay black man, Bayard Rustin, who had to stay in the background of the African-American Civil Rights Movement because of ignorance and homophobia.
In light of this, what in the hell was anyone thinking inviting someone like McClurkin to this celebration? It's an insult to not only Rustin's memory, but in light of hearing McClurkin's comments, the spirit of the 1963 March itself. The march was about freedom from ignorance and bigotry - two qualities which McClurkin demonstrated that he had so much of that they could have been oozing out of his pores along with the sweat.
But no matter how you feel about this controversy, count to yourself just how many times will McClurkin and his supporters address the ugly comments he made in the above video instead of playing the victim.
Count how many times McClurkin and his supporters will just happen to evade specific details regarding his rhetoric.
If you are truly a man of God, Mr. McClurkin, you shouldn't be afraid to address what you have said. You shouldn't run away from your words.
I, and so many others, await hearing from you, especially those "feminine men" you talked about.
Many of them happen to be very good friends of mine.
To some folks, the lgbt community seems to be a cash cow. We have too many people earning a living attempting to defame us or deny us equality.
We collect them unfortunately.
For example, here is yet another one, Austin Ruse of the C-FAM (Catholic and Human Rights Institute.) Now earlier, he actually defended Russia for its draconian anti-gay laws. Today, while substituting for another religious right radio show host, he not only continues to defend the law but actually claims that most people in America would actually defend the law. Of course, watch how he defines this law as an attempt to keep gays from "recruiting" children:
Somehow, I have a hard time believing this. Perhaps its because of the source. You see, there is something else you should know about Ruse which is solely my opinion of him.
The man's an idiot, a 24-carat moron whose mind is a blank slate just ready to pop in whatever religious right propaganda against gays that exists.
And I say this because I have had contact with Ruse in the past. In 2009, we butted heads on my blog in regards to a pro-lgbt resolution at the United Nations. We went back and forth in the comments section of this post.
I found one part of his nonsensical rambling so amusing that I simply had to make a blog post out of it. Apparently Austin thinks that there are 20 gender identities. However, watch how he tap dances around the subject when asked to name them.
