The Daily Background

There’s been a firestorm over the the booking by the Obama campaign of Donnie McClurkin, an anti-gay preacher and musician on a campaign-sponsored gospel tour in South Carolina (he was asked about it during the MTV candidate dialog earlier today– see the above video). The tour is now over.

McClurkin has also performed at the Democratic National Convention, as well as for the Clintons. Does anybody think this reflects poorly on the DNC or Hillary?

A lot of people are inferring I think progressives who see it as an attempt to reach out to anti-gay sentiments are just grasping at straws. It was a poor booking decision in retrospect. There’s no need to read more into it than that. They didn’t know his background, and neither did virtually anybody else before this firestorm started. In an interview with The Advocate recently, Obama was asked about the hiring decision:

REPORTER: How did this happen? Was Mr. McClurkin vetted?

OBAMA: Obviously, not vetted to the extent that people were aware of his attitudes with respect to gay and lesbians, LGBT issues — at least not vetted as well as I would have liked to see.

Having said that, we viewed this simply as an opportunity to have a gospel concert as part of our overall outreach, and since he was singing at a concert along with a number of other artists, as opposed to being a spokesperson for us, probably it didn’t undergo the same kind of vet that someone who was serving as a surrogate for me might have.

John Aravosis, the blogger who has been pushing this story the most (and somebody I have great respect for and have exchanged friendly emails with) has been referring to McClurkin as a “spokesman” for Obama’s campaign– something which he clearly isn’t. He doesn’t speak for Obama, something that Obama has had to say several times.

In the blogosphere, we’ve gotten very adept at noticing homophobia and attacking it wherever it exists– and that’s a really, really good thing, but the fact that one particular musician rather than another performs at an event in support of a candidate doesn’t really get under my skin in a big way.

The bottom line is this. Do McClurkin’s views on homosexuality bother me? Of course. Do I disagree with them? Absolutely, and so does Obama. Does the fact that Obama’s campaign wanted McClurkin to perform for them in a series of concerts promoting the candidate among African American audiences in South Carolina make me question Obama’s support of GLBT equality? Not at all.

McClurkin’s message about homosexuality is contrary to 100% of Obama’s stances and statements on the matter, and so the fact that McClurkin sang at three events for him doesn’t bother me at all, and it doesn’t make me question Obama’s commitment to the GLBT community in the least bit. I listen to a lot of hip hop, but does that mean I agree with half the values or opinions that some of my favorite musicians espouse? Not at all.

In a more broad sense, I think it’s silly to say that just because his campaign made a stupid hiring choice and Obama made the mistake of not un-booking McClurkin, that Obama will be worse on GLBT issues than, say, somebody like Clinton, or Edwards. The issue of who performs at a concert for a candidate isn’t a make or break one for me, and in the real world most people haven’t even heard about this (and those of us who have will have forgotten by primary time anyway).

In the long run, I’m much more interested in what candidates themselves say about important issues, rather than what things their supporters might say about important issues. Maybe if Obama had zero record of supporting equal rights for GLBT Americans, we could try an infer his feelings by examining the statements of his supporters. But considering that he has a long record of fighting against anti-gay bigots in the African American community (like Alan Keyes, his 2004 Senate opponent) and opposing homophobia and supporting equal rights, I don’t give a damn how ignorant or bigoted or homophobic or confused one of his supporters happens to be.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog