Following up on an item from Tuesday, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has faced criticism this week after it was discovered that one of the musicians in a South Carolina campaign gospel concert this weekend is homophobic. Donnie McClurkin, a Grammy-winning singer, claims to have been “cured” of homosexuality, and believes other gays can overcome their “curse” by way of prayer.
Obama issued a statement denouncing McClurkin’s anti-gay views, and expressing his support for gay rights, but did not pull McClurkin from the concert line-up. Yesterday, the campaign tried a new approach to diffusing the controversy.
Senator Barack Obama is trying to tamp down a growing uproar over his plans to include a controversial gospel singer at a campaign concert this weekend in South Carolina and says he will feature an openly gay minister before the concert.
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay-rights organization in the country, says it appreciates the gesture but is still “disappointed” that the Obama campaign is giving a platform to someone it considers homophobic. The activists and many bloggers want the Obama campaign to bump the signer, Donnie McClurkin, from the tour.
But in a phone call that just concluded, Mr. Obama told Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, that he intended to keep Mr. McClurkin in the lineup. He is to appear Sunday in Columbia as part of a three-day gospel tour to help Mr. Obama reach out to black evangelicals.
In case there were any lingering doubts, raised in some circles, about whether the campaign deliberately chose an anti-gay performer for the concert, Obama aide Steve Hildebrand, and a prominent gay adviser, Tobias Wolff, conceded yesterday that the campaign simply didn’t do its due diligence, and didn’t realize what McClurkin had said about gays. They also stressed Obama’s “unequivocal” commitment to gay rights.
So, will this end the controversy? Is this some kind of Solomonic compromise? It depends on whom you ask.
HRC’s Solmonese seems to believe the campaign’s decision to add an openly gay minister to the concert is a step in the right direction.
“I did thank him for announcing he would be adding an openly gay minister as part of the tour and for his willingness to call on religious leaders to open a dialogue about homophobia. We hope that Senator Obama will move forward and facilitate face to face meetings with religious leaders, like Rev. McClurkin, and the GLBT community to confront the issue of homophobia.”
Aravosis, on the other hand, was unimpressed.
Obama’s latest sleight of hand in “cure the gays”-gate is he’s now offering to have a gay preacher open his homophobic gospel tour where he’s going to be showcasing an outspoken homophobic bigot who thinks gays are trying to kill your children, who thinks being gay is a “curse,” and who thinks that gays need to be cured (the anti-gay activist is now denying that he ever used the word “cured” – whatever, the guy thinks we need to be fixed, can be fixed, it’s all the same thing).
Which brings up the question: Would Obama put a Klansman on stage so long as he brought a black minister or a rabbi up there too?
Also, there’s some confusion about whether there’s a gospel “tour” or a gospel “concert” on Obama’s behalf in South Carolina. As it turns out, there are three separate shows scheduled for the weekend, but McClurkin is only scheduled to appear in one of the three. As far as I can tell, none of the other musicians involved are considered controversial.
Just an aside, Obama staffers have said they can’t pull McClurkin from this weekend’s show because of logistics. Perhaps that’s true, though I suspect it also has something to do with not offending black evangelicals in South Carolina. But if the campaign is looking for an excuse to dump McClurkin that has nothing to do with religion and/or tolerance, maybe they could use McClurkin’s role at the 2004 RNC?
