Obama To Do Gospel Tour With "Ex-Gay" Singer Who Vowed To Battle "Curse Of Homosexual

[thoughtone]

source: Americablog.com

Obama to do gospel tour with radical right singer who crusades against "the curse of homosexuality"

by John Aravosis (DC) · 10/20/2007 10:57:00 AM ET
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From the NYT:
As religious conservatives gather in Washington this weekend for the “Values Voters Summit,” Senator Barack Obama’s campaign announced its latest effort to attract people of faith to the campaign: a gospel concert tour.

All three of the dates of the “Embrace the Change” tour are in South Carolina, where Mr. Obama is locked in battle with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for black voters.

Gospel acts including Mary Mary, Donnie McClurkin and Hezekiah Walker, Byron Cage and the Mighty Clouds of Joy are scheduled to appear.

“This is another example of how Barack Obama is defying conventional wisdom about how politics is done and giving new meaning to meeting people at the grassroots level,” Joshua DuBois, the campaign’s religious affairs director, said in a release.
Yes, sucking up to anti-gay bigots and joining them on stage - no, giving them a stage - is certainly defying conventional wisdom as to how a Democrat becomes president. Oh, and McClurkin also believes that gays can, and need to, be "cured."

Washington Post:
Gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, who has detailed his struggle with gay tendencies and vowed to battle "the curse of homosexuality," said yesterday he'll perform as scheduled at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, despite controversy over his view that sexuality can be changed by religious intervention.

"I can't let off. I didn't call myself -- God called me to do what I do," McClurkin told The Post's Hamil R. Harris. The Grammy winner declared, "If this is a war, we are willing to fight. Not a war of violence, but a war of purpose."

 

[QueEx]

Re: Obama To Do Gospel Tour With "Ex-Gay" Singer Who Vowed To Battle "Curse Of Homose

Donnie McClurkin

Hezekiah Walker

Byron Cage

Mighty Clouds of Joy - (Then; Circa 1960)

Might Clouds of Joy - (Now)

 

[london]

Re: Obama To Do Gospel Tour With "Ex-Gay" Singer Who Vowed To Battle "Curse Of Homose

EX gay??????
what does that mean exactly ?

 

[kwazdog]

Re: Obama To Do Gospel Tour With "Ex-Gay" Singer Who Vowed To Battle "Curse Of Homose

Why is this newsworthy to a heterosexual?

 

[QueEx]

Re: Obama To Do Gospel Tour With "Ex-Gay" Singer Who Vowed To Battle "Curse Of Homose

Obama Should Repudiate and Cancel
His Gay Bash Tour, and Do It Now​

​

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
October 20, 2007

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama ripped a page straight from the Bush campaign playbook with his announced upcoming three date barnstorm tour through South Carolina with notorious gay basher, gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. The Grammy winning black gospel singer's last effort on the political scene was his song and shill for Bush's reelection at the Republican National Convention in 2004. Obama has hitched his string to McClurkin's high flying gay bash kite in part out of religious belief (he purports to be somewhat of an evangelical), in bigger part because he's falling further and further behind Hillary Clinton with the black vote in South Carolina and everywhere else, and in the biggest part of all because he hopes that what worked for Bush's reelection will work for him.

Enter McClurkin. He's black, he's popular, and gospel plays big with blacks in South Carolina, especially black evangelicals, and many of them openly and even more of them quietly loathe gays.

Bush masterfully tapped that homophobic sentiment in 2000 in part with McClurkin and even more masterfully in 2004 again with McClurkin and the top gun mega black preachers in Ohio and Florida. He tapped it so masterfully that Bush's naked pander to gay bashing with the GOP spawned anti-gay marriage initiative in Ohio did much to win over a big chunk of black evangelical leaning voter to Bush.

In fact, the great untold story of the 2004 presidential elections was the black evangelical vote.

Although black evangelicals still voted overwhelmingly for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, they gave Bush the cushion he needed to bag Ohio and win the White House. There were early warning signs that might happen. The same polls that showed black's prime concern was with bread and butter issues -- and that Kerry was seen as the candidate who could deliver on those issues -- also revealed that a sizeable number of blacks ranked abortion, gay marriage and school prayer as priority issues. Their concern for these issues didn't come anywhere close to that of white evangelicals, but it was still higher than that of the general voting public.

A Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies poll in 2004 found that blacks by a far larger margin than the overall population opposed gay marriage. That raised a few eyebrows among some political pundits, but there were much earlier signs of blacks' relentless hostility to gays and gay rights. A survey that measured black attitudes toward gays published in Jet magazine in 1994 found that a sizable number of blacks were suspicious and scornful of them. Many blacks also were put off by Kerry's perceived support of abortion. In polls, Kerry got 20 percent less support from black conservative evangelicals than Democratic presidential contender Al Gore received in 2000.

In Florida and Wisconsin, Republicans aggressively courted and wooed key black religious leaders. They dumped big bucks from Bush's Faith-Based Initiative program into church-run education and youth programs. Black church leaders not only endorsed Bush but in some cases they actively worked for his re-election, and encouraged members of their congregations to do the same.

This lesson isn't lost on Obama. Desperate to snatch back some of the political ground with black voters that are slipping away from him and to Hillary; Bush's black evangelical card seems like the perfect play. Obama wouldn't dare go down the knock gay path, and risk drawing the inevitable heat for it, if he didn't think as Bush that anti-gay sentiment is still wide and deep among many blacks.

And that's what makes Obama's ala Bush pander to anti-gay mania even more shameless and reprehensible. From the moment that he tossed his hat in the presidential ring, Obama has done everything he could to sell himself to voters, as the Man on the White Horse, a fresh new face on the scene, with new ideas, and the candidate that's not afraid to boldly challenge Bush and the GOP on everything from the Iraq war to health care.

He's also sold himself as a healer and consensus builder. Legions have bought his pitch, and have shelled out millions to bankroll his campaign. But healing and consensus building does not mean sucking up to someone that publicly boasts that he's in "a war" against gays, and that the aim of his war is to "cure" them. That's what McClurkin has said. Polls show that more Americans than ever say that they support civil rights for gays, and a torrent of gay themed TV shows present non-stereotypical depictions of gays. But this increased tolerance has not dissipated the hostility that far too many blacks, especially hard core Bible thumping blacks, feel toward gays.

Obama has spent months telling everyone that he's everything that Bush isn't. He can proof it by saying a resounding no to McClurkin and to gay bashing. He can cancel and repudiate the South Carolina "gospel" tour, and do it now.

__________________

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a syndicated columnist and political analyst. He is the author of nine books on race, politics, and social issues. His numerous published articles appear in newspapers and magazines across the country. Read his hard hitting news and opinion blog at www.blackgopbook.com


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/obama-should-repudiate-an_b_69244.html

 

[Perritone]

Re: Obama To Do Gospel Tour With "Ex-Gay" Singer Who Vowed To Battle "Curse Of Homose

I don't give a damn what anyone says, Homosexuallity is a
BRAIN DISORDER!

Being Gay is a Choice!

Because a Lie is told a trillion times and people get tierd of
repuding it - Does not then, make it the TRUTH!

"I Was Born this way", my EYE!

So what Obamas going to do a tour with those people, more power to him!

At least he's no waffling on issues!

That should be important.

Something Tells me Dr. Earl might be a Closet Dick Eater?

Da Dog

 

[bhunt]

Re: Obama To Do Gospel Tour With "Ex-Gay" Singer Who Vowed To Battle "Curse Of Homose

I don't give a damn what anyone says, Homosexuallity is a
BRAIN DISORDER!

Being Gay is a Choice!

Because a Lie is told a trillion times and people get tierd of
repuding it - Does not then, make it the TRUTH!

"I Was Born this way", my EYE!

So what Obamas going to do a tour with those people, more power to him!

At least he's no waffling on issues!

That should be important.

Something Tells me Dr. Earl might be a Closet Dick Eater?

Da Dog

I think people are born that way, because nobody would choose to curse themselvs with the issues of being homosexual in amerikkka. I think of it along the same lines as down syndrome some other emotional diease. Something doing to be with one of the X or Y chromosomes getting crossed.



things like this haven't been able to be explained yet by the "I choose to be gay" camp".
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1115728972245_19/?hub=World

 

[truplutu]

Re: Obama To Do Gospel Tour With "Ex-Gay" Singer Who Vowed To Battle "Curse Of Homose

Why would Obama care about the fags anyway. Not like he is fag bashing or something. Let the man practice his religion in peace. First people tried to say he was a muslim now they trying to say he is a fag basher leave him th efuck alone.