McClurkin is the poster boy for African-American “ex-gay” ministries....From AP:
In the highly competitive race for black evangelical votes in South Carolina, McClurkin just might give Obama the needed edge. However, that edge will come at a high price. It reveals that Obama is not only a vote-whore, but a candidate who plays the race card as well....
Obama will continue to speak and write about the special relationship he has with his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, as long as it doesn’t run afoul of his ambitions. When news got out about Wright’s Afro-centric theology and Sunday sermons that disparage whites and Israel, Obama immediately distanced himself. Yet these same sermons were not a problem for Obama when they were spiritually nurturing him into becoming a public figure. And when news got out that Wright was to deliver the invocation when Obama formally announced his candidacy in February, Obama canceled his appearance.....
Once again, Obama is proving that his campaign marketed as “The Audacity of Hope” is really based on the audacity of hypocrisy.
"The Obama campaign is trying to bridge real divides and bring people together. Two things are certain: We will never be able to bridge those divides if we are unwilling to listen to voices we don't agree with, and we will never change anyone's mind if we refuse to talk to him," Griffs said in a statement.Cute. No one said you couldn't talk to him. But putting him up on stage as your mascot in a bald bid for money and votes, that's pretty gross. And pretending that it's not what you're doing, that you somehow decided to showcase a bigot in order to prove how pro-gay you really are, is simply perverse.
From Salon:
Sen. Barack Obama's decision to tour South Carolina with gospel entertainer Donnie McClurkin, a self-proclaimed "former homosexual" who believes it is his mission to turn gays straight, suggests that Obama can't live without the support of the homophobic contingent of the black community and the black church in particular. But African-American politicians have already proved that black support is not contingent on homophobia.What a horrifying concept. Is that what Obama is really saying, that black support is contingent on homophobia? Wow. If a white candidate had made that assertion...
More from Salon:
Obama's gay advocates obviously support him regardless of this fumble. But his gay critics are right to ask why he thinks getting homosexuals to sit at the same table with antigay and allegedly "ex-gay" Christians represents some kind of balance. Had McClurkin been a Holocaust denier, my money says Obama would be "embracing a change" in his tour's entertainment lineup, lickety-split.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that Obama is playing to both sides -- that seems to be what he's best at. He means well, but you know what they say about the highways in hell. However, adding Sidden to the mix without giving McClurkin the shaft was enough of an afterthought to incense the gay community without fixing the problem. Did Obama overestimate the depth of the black community's homophobia and unintentionally solidify the stereotype about him -- that he's the white man's black candidate? Well, if Sharpton refuses to pander to the homophobic faction of the black church, why should anybody else?
