Obama gave an interview regarding the McClurkin debacle to The Advocate, the leading gay rag. Some points of note (although the entire interview is worth reading):
How did this happen? Was Mr. McClurkin vetted?
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.
Does this tour mark a turning point in the campaign where you’re more focused on wooing voters than fund-raising?
I recognize why this has attracted attention in the LGBT community, [but] in terms of our overall campaign strategy, it’s just one among multiple things that we’ve been doing in South Carolina. People in South Carolina listen to gospel music, so we have organized some gospel concerts. Black folks in South Carolina frequent barbershops and beauty shops, so we’ve had a barbershop–beauty shop strategy. And by the way, I can’t vouch for the opinions of every barbershop and beauty shop owner in South Carolina. But that is where people go, and so we’ve organized a particular way of reaching out to African-American voters in the barbershops and beauty shops. So this is just part of an ongoing strategy with multiple parts.
Furthmore, Think On These Things had a terrific write up:
There is no way to unify this country if people on both sides refuse to be in the same space as those with whom they disagree. It is fine to disagree and be vocal about your disagreement, but you absolutely can’t make progress without even talking to each other. Both sides need to stop being intolerant and threatened by those who are different from them. We need more Rick Warrens on the conservative side and Barack Obamas on the progressive side.
Which would have made everyone happy if McClurkin himself wasn’t such a dickhole. We were, largely, willing to forgive and get along, until this:
Tonight there was a small vigil of about 15 or 20 gays and lesbians, who stood quietly across the street as people filed into a big auditorium here for the last of three campaign-sponsored concerts (and the only one to feature Mr. McClurkin). The whole controversy might have been forgotten in the swell of gospel sound except Mr. McClurkin turned the final half hour of the three-hour concert into a revival meeting about the lightning rod he has become for the Obama campaign.
He approached the subject gingerly at first. Then, just when the concert had seemed to reach its pitch and about to end, Mr. McClurkin returned to it with a full-blown plea: “Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay when I have suffered the same feelings,” he cried.
The Obama camp did a daring thing: They invited a Grammy winner to sing in their concert, and, when presented with his anti-liberal views, stood by him, proclaiming he, too, could be a part of the tent. Those of us on the outside looking in applauded, hesitantly, this position. McClurkin did not need to defend himself here, in what should have been a venue supporting Obama and not veering off in to personal speaker opinions. You’ll get no argument here.
However, this especially is not Obama’s fault, as Goon Oracle so well pointed out:
Christ. McClurkin is not a spokesman for Obama’s candidacy. Let’s get that straight right now, shall we? He was invited, among other gospel performers, to sing at an event, not give a rousing let’s burn the faggots speech. If this hadn’t been blown into this big huge dustup the man would likely have just gotten on stage, sang his little song, and left. Giving him the chance to have the ‘last word’ as it were, was probably not the best idea, but I don’t think anyone expected him to go into a half hour rant about it when all he was supposed to do was fucking sing. For all we know he promised them to do just that then couldn’t resist hogging the spotlight.
As far as this getting the base/Kos all in an uproar, Kos is becoming seriously known for eating its own because of the purity tests. As far as Kos being right about Obama being in some kind of death spiral, I’ll remind you this is the same blog that had all but anointed Howard Dean the Democratic candidate even when the polls started to turn. One might charitably say they have blinders on. As for the rest of the base, don’t forget a large chunk of said base is blue-collar union workers, who are not exactly gay tolerant as a group. To pretend that every single Democratic or even Democratic primary voter is a frothing PFLAG member is being… optimistic, to say the least, especially in places like Iowa, North Carolina, and New Hampshire. Sad to say, but gay rights are still not quite as high a priority as they should be in the party, a few very vocal members and some party convention planks nonwithstanding. I don’t think voting-wise this is going to hurt Obama much if at all, and it may even help him among the religious left of the ‘pray the gay away’ persuasion who otherwise support things like birth control, national/universal health care, peace in Iraq etc. Let’s not forget how many states just passed same-sex marriage bans and the Democratic crossover votes that helped them pass.
Am I saying this is right or fair or proper? Hell no. It sucks people are still voting on the ick factor when so many more important things that actually affect them are up for grabs. However that same ick factor is going to make this a relative tempest in a teapot. Regardless of how many gay folk are raising hell about it, they are still very much a small minority with limited support even within the Democratic party (remember when Bill Clinton promised gays they could serve openly in the military and then reneged with Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell? Yeah, forgive my irony, but the gays have been taking it in the ass from the Democrats for a long time. A huge stink was raised about that too but come ‘96, I didn’t see a whole lot of Homos For Dole buttons, you know what I mean?)
I think the smartest thing he can do at this point is just shut the hell up about it, not hire McClurkin to sing again, and vette his performers for, if not perfectly aligning views, at least the ability to not go off on rants about them while on stage for other purposes.
We could not agree more.
