Democrats’ Sanctified Symbiosis: What Kos and Atrios Don’t Get About Obama-McClurkin

(I know I said I was finished with this topic, but I was reading some more blog coverage today and it’s hard for me to watch progressives miss the point of this story. Hopefully this can be my last post.)

I vehemently disagree with Donnie McClurkin’s views on homosexuality as I have said in other posts. However, whether or not you decide to vote for Obama, if progressives walk away from this situation and do not fully understand the complexity of the problem you have robbed yourselves out of reaching a solution. To steal a phrase made popular by Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, McClurkin and Obama are just “the miner’s canary.”

Equal Opportunity Anger

Based on a blog post I read at DailyKos, I’m concerned that people are indeed walking away and not understanding the complexity of the problem. The post myopically rails against Obama’s association with McClurkin.

I assume Kos will be writing similar posts soon for the other candidates. Let’s start with Hillary Clinton. One member of African American Men for Hillary Clinton is Bishop Tavis Grant III who has said:

“One of the misnomers in this fight against same-sex marriage is … the premise that [gays] are fighting based on the principles of the civil rights movement. All of us agree that prejudice and racism [are] immoral, and most Americans agree that gay lifestyle is immoral.”

• Are we going to start a protest the next time Bishop Grant gets on the stump again for her?
• The Clintons are also close to Bishop Eddie Long, whose church they have appeared at, and who has led an anti-gay march through the streets of Atlanta. Will he be allowed to stump for her?
• Juanita Bynum is an evangelical who has preached views you’re probably not going to support either and she has already expressed support in stumping for Obama. Will she be allowed to do so?
• Why didn’t anybody also protest Mary Mary at the Obama concert who have made similar statements about homosexuals? Or Hezekiah Walker?

The Symbiotic Relationship

Now, my point is not that we need to start a witchhunt or that Candidate A did it so that means Candidate B can do it.

My point is that the Democratic Party has to acknowledge its long-standing symbiotic relationship with black religious voters, leaders and gospel artists who hold and publicly preach views similar to McClurkin.

It is wrong for Democratic partisans to make this thing just about Barack Obama. This thing is bigger than that. How can the Democratic Party use the black church and black religious artists every election year and now turn around and pretend like using black religious icons to campaign is something new? This stuff was happening before we even heard of someone named Barack Obama.

Oh, So Now You Don’t Know Me?

The comments I have been reading about the black religious voters in South Carolina who attended McClurkin’s concert or who like his music have been so mind-blowing to read. How are Democrats going to all of a sudden act like y’all don’t know these people? The people who have shown up consistently in elections and voted Democrat? The people who have given you endorsements against Republican candidates? The people who have voted in members of the CBC who are aligned with the Democratic Party on issues? The people who have serenaded your Democratic conventions? (Ironically, Donnie McClurkin himself has serenaded a previous DNC convention for Bill Clinton and Democrats gave him a nice little round of applause at the end.) These people have voted and campaigned for Democrats despite their views on homosexuality. Shouldn’t you be ashamed of some of the comments you have made about these people, given how much you use them for your own political purposes?

Does that justify black southern voters who have these views of homosexuality? No. You’re right to be vocal in your opposition to these views and I support your opposition to the views. However, you’re also not justified in having historically benefited from a close relationship with these voters and then to now all of a sudden pretend like you didn’t know black people who supported and campaigned for Democrats had these views. That’s why this simplistic, myopic reaction to Obama-McClurkin doesn’t sit well with me.

It Just Happened To Be Donnie McClurkin

You can do all the vetting in the world, but given the pervasiveness of homophobia in religious circles, both black and white, you would eventually run into this issue at some point when a country starts unifying.

The problem did not arise because a Democratic candidate decided to use a black gospel artist with disturbing views on homosexuality, because it happens all the time in Democratic campaigns! The problem arose when some people in the Democratic Party decided to use it as a wedge issue in a hotly contested primary.

Therefore, it’s less a matter of with which candidate or with which artist this issue would come up. It just happened to be Donnie McClurkin who became the poster child for this problem. However, it could have been Angie and Debbie Winans (remember their song, ‘It’s Not Natural’?), Joyce Meyer, Marvin Winans, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Bishop Eddie Long, Bishop Paul Morton, Bishop Noel Jones, or Juanita Bynum. All of them have significant black religious followings and all of them have made similar controversial statements to McClurkin. I assume that some of them will want to stump for some Democratic candidates. It’s less a matter of which artist but more a matter of how progressives are going to deal with it.

The Great Question for Progressives

Again, the great question here is not which candidate has a person with these beliefs campaigning for or supporting them because all the Democrats are guilty. Instead it is:

How will progressives deal with evangelical voters who want to align themselves with the Democratic Party?

Whatever the answer is to that question should be applied across the board, not just to one particular candidate.

I am not certain of what everyone’s answer to that question will be and hopefully you’ll figure it out before the primaries. But the one thing I am certain of is that you’re not going to be able to craft an effective solution to homophobia in politics if you don’t acknowledge the gravity and the extent of the problem.

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P.S. The Washington Post says the Hillary Clinton campaign pushed this Obama-McClurkin story to the media outlets. This time McClurkin was expendable to them, despite their own guilt in this situation and McClurkin’s singing for Bill Clinton in the past, but it could have been anybody else thrown to the wolves for political gamesmanship. This makes it clear to me that they are more interested in capitalizing on a troubling dis-ease for the LGBT community and for African Americans than in being a part of a unifying solution.