Every year Mayor Tom Menino's Office of Arts, Tourism and Special Events puts on its annual Boston GospelFest at City Hall Plaza.
And because the Gospelfest is a public and taxpayer-funded community event, it's open to all -- even the African American lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities.
But with Pastor Donnie McClurkin, the poster boy for African American "ex-gay" ministries, who spews anti-gay, religion-based vitriol, billed as the main event, many in the African American LGBTQ communities will not be in attendance at this year's event. And neither will the mayor.
Menino ranks among the most pro-LGBTQ mayors across the country. He refused to participate in Boston's St. Patrick's Day parade when organizers barred an LGBTQ group from marching. And he was always an advocate for equal marriage. Menino has thrown his weight around and has used his power on behalf of LGBTQ civil rights, and has succeeded in doing so.
However, when it comes to moving Boston's black ministers on LGBTQ civil rights, Menino's struggle has been and is like that of other elected officials and queer activists -- immovable. Sadly many of Boston's black ministers are in lock step with black homophobic ministers across the country.
Menino's absence from this year's Gospelfest is another sad example of how Boston's black ministers, an influential and powerful political voting bloc of the mayor's, would rather compromise its decade-long friendship with City Hall than denounce McClurkin's appearance.
And while Boston's black ministers' support of McClurkin's appearance put the mayor between a rock and a hard place with its LGBTQ and African American communities, it also puts Menino in a difficult spot with his African American LGBTQ communities.
It is Greater Boston's African American LGBTQ communities that will feel denounced at this year's Gospelfest, wishing the mayor's office had contacted someone from our community in their vetting of McClurkin.
For many in the African American LGBTQ communities, we, too, along with our heterosexual Christian brothers and sisters, excitedly await Boston's annual Gospelfest.
Gospelfest brings together huge gatherings of black church-going Christians across Greater Boston and across denominational affiliations in fellowship with one another.
While for many African American heterosexual Christians, Gospefest is a second worship service for them for the day because it's always held on a Sunday, for many African American LGBTQ Christians, Gospelfest is our only worship service for the year.
With too few open and welcoming African American churches in Greater Boston, Gospelfest affords many of us in our black LGBTQ communities a sweet moment -- as unabashedly Christians and unapologetically queers -- incorporate worship and celebration with our faith communities in an inclusive and public space.
"God did not call you to such perversions. Your only hope is Jesus Christ. Were it not for this Jesus I would be a homosexual today. This God is a deliverer," is just an example of the continuous flow of McClurkin's homophobic remarks stated at the Church of God in Christ's (COGIC) 102nd Holy Convocation International Youth Department Worship Service in November 2009.
Ms. Julie Burns, the Director of Arts, Tourism and Special Events for the Mayor's Office, came late to knowing about McClurkin's anti-gay rhetoric.
When Burns called me on June 24 about the McClurkin kerfuffle with Gospelfest just weeks away, she was apologetic.
"I learned yesterday -- through the Phoenix article regarding the City of Boston Gospel Fest -- of the depth and breath of Donnie McClurkin's views on the Gay community," Burns wrote in an e-mail to me. "I am embarrassed to say that I was not aware of this and we obviously should have vetted him further. Gospel Fest is in its 10th year and is arguably the largest Gospel event in New England. Minister McClurkin was recommended to us by a number of people and we were swayed by his artistic honors. Of course, this does not excuse the situation that we now find ourselves in! Please rest assured that Mayor Menino did not know anything about this and would never condone 'hate speech' of any kind."
In asking for my help, I supplied Burns with a list of ten top tier singers of Rev. Donnie McClurkin's caliber. In an e-mail to Burns I wrote stating "there is no top singing African American gospel singer who's publicly an ally to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities. While many of the singers are LGBTQ -- because black gospel music is the expression of a 'black gay male gospel aesthetic' -- very few are as public about their denunciation of the LGBTQ community as 'ex-gay' Rev. Donnie McClurkin."
Although many of us African American LGBTQ will not be in attendance at this year's Gospelfest, the crowd will be, nonetheless, shouting to a black gay male gospel aesthetic, because McClurkin will be there.
If only that were possible. Sadly, it is not.
Sugar-coated ignorance and bigotry dressed up to look like love is not love.
What I find tragic, and, to be honest, infuriating, is that society is looking to the writings of primitive men for sexual morality. That is insane.
Bigotry is indeed a core part of the Bible, as is misogyny. We, as a society, conveniently toss aside other biblical directives because of their anachronous inanity (e.g. not eating shellfish, etc), but we just can't let go of the condemnation of homosexuality.
So long as we ignore the findings of science, which are increasingly supportive of the belief that homosexuality is a natural variant on human sexuality, and instead keep our blind allegiance to a book of men, not of God, fraught with ignorance, we cannot walk in both love AND truth.
1. The crowd was mixed and diverse of all backgrounds.
2. What united folks was the desire to fellowship despite our differences.
3. Rev McClurkin, led a worship service that called to all, regardless of background and I am so glad that I attended.
Ms Monroe you bring to light an internal conflict within the institution of the Christian faith: how to love and forgive those who have hurt us and still worship the same God. We sometimes confuse the politics of human governance with the divine encounter. The divine, transcends our politics. It calls on us to see the God in each of us. Rev McClurkin speaks the truth of his life and his experience as you and others speak the truth of your life and experiences. At the end of it all, we will reach the end of this life journey and be connected to an eternal truth of life- that the petty things we argue over mean nothing. I've been fortuntate to encounter many centenarians whose wise reflection over life reminds us that our sexuality does not define us, nor does our politics, wealth and social status. But what does is teh quality and integrity of the love we shared when we had the chance.
GOD IS LOVE!
Does he, though?
I was raised under Evangelical influence and I have seen how Christianity works. I've lived it. I am not convinced at all that the "ex-gay" movement is rooted in truth; it is rooted in denial.
Most, if not all, so-called ex-gays who claim they are no longer homosexual are Christians, or have said they were "cured" via organized religion. Why is this so? Because of the healing power of Christ, because of salvation through the Lord?
No. Guilt and shame.
That's all there is. Religion shames and guilts people into a prison of self-hatred where, for them, the ONLY option is to say they have changed. The threat of eternal suffering and torment is a very powerful tool. The "pray away the gay" thing is nothing but an intellectually dishonest sham. The pressure religion puts on gay people to change is tremendous. Often well-intentioned Christians, for instance, commit spiritual violence by shaming gays. It's no coincidence that, predominantly speaking, vocal "ex-gays" are all Christians, and not for the reasons you're thinking.
Why should that not include Donny McClurkin ?
Surely he is not the only person who was sexually violated as a child and
as a result has conflicted sexuality.
To be 'open to all' should include the (very large) community of the sexually abused.
Even if what they have to say regarding sexual behavior is not currently considered politically correct. In particular, the mostly still silent population of boys abused by adult males.
1) You do know there is a difference between "open to all" and "headliner" i.e. the PAID invited act on the stage?
2) McClurkin does not just speak of his own conflicted sexuality, he actively mobilizes against equal civil rights for gay citizens, and should not be invited to ANY publicly-funded event.
3) The gay community who are denied equal rights by the likes of McClurkin are not all abuse victims. Many are happy, healthy, long-term-committed families with kids. But he still spews at them.
4) The "Ex-Gay" movement may be a demonstration of religious self-denial, but it is not truly possible to be ex-gay under any scientific or medical standard. Of course, like the directors of FRC and NOM, by speaking at events McClurkin makes a LOT of money being "Ex Gay" -- even though he ALSO got to enjoy being gay... and maybe still does? The Ex-Gay movement wants to have their c*ck and eat it too.
1) You do know there is a difference between "open to all" and "headliner" i.e. the PAID invited act on the stage?
2) McClurkin does not just speak of his own conflicted sexuality, he actively mobilizes against equal civil rights for gay citizens, and should not be invited to ANY publicly-funded event.
3) The gay community who are denied equal rights by the likes of McClurkin are not all abuse victims. Many are happy, healthy, long-term-committed families with kids.
Religions that push this idea are morally bankrupt and DECEIVE.
No.
McClurkin and Warren being even *invited* to Obama events was a slap in the face to a big number of his supporters.