Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and gave his “I Have A Dream” speech and spoke of the day when people would be judged by the content of their character. I am not sure that the recent controversy over singer Donnie McClurkin is what MLK had in mind. McClurkin is a deeply religious man who says that God delivered him from being gay. That reportedly led to his being told that he was no longer welcomed at the anniversary performance of the speech.
McClurkin was scheduled to perform at the concert Saturday evening but gay rights activities objected to his participation ahead of the event.
Yet, Doxie McCoy, a spokeswoman for Mayor Vincent Gray, insisted that it was McClurkin who removed himself from the lineup to avoid controversy over his participation. She issued a statement that “[t]he Arts and Humanities Commission and Donnie McClurkin’s management decided that it would be best for him to withdraw because the purpose of the event is to bring people together.”
McClurkin however contradicted that account and said that he did not agree to be excluded. He states that he was “asked not to attend” the concert. That is quite a difference in accounts. Where the Mayor’s office is claiming that he removed himself, he is saying that he was barred because of his religious beliefs.
I can understand the feelings of gay rights advocates, particularly given the clear analogies of their own current struggle with the fight of Martin Luther King. However, the greater symbol of division can be found in barring people who share their admiration for MLK but subscribe to opposing religious views. I am equally concerned over what McClurkin is clearly suggesting is a false account from the office of Mayor Gray on the matter. The burden is now on Gray’s office to produce proof that the singer did opt not to attend to avoid controversy.
What do you think?
Source: Washington Post
David, I am going to have to check the list of people who served on the DSM task force in the morning. However, IIRC, neither of those men were on the committee–I will have to check to see for sure. I do know they wrote to Dr. Spitzer expressing strong disapproval.
Socarides was a psychoanalyst, who bought into Freud’s theories about sexual development at early ages. He had been making a pretty good living off homosexuals who hoped to change because of the social stigma of being homosexual at that time. The stigma is less now, but still there. When it was taken out of the diagnostic manual, he could no longer bill insurance for his “treatments.”
Socarides wrote that he believed homosexuality to be a “neurosis” and that male homosexuality develops in the first two years of life, when the pre-Oedipal stage of the boy’s personality is being formed. He wrote that male homosexuality is caused by a controlling mother who prevents her son from separating from her, and a weak or rejecting father who does not serve as a role model for his son or support his efforts to escape from the mother.
Interesting. His son, Richard Socarides, is openly gay, and is a Democratic strategist. Way to go dad!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Socarides
From Davidm2575’s “scientist”:
Socarides: “Homosexuality cannot create a society or keep one going for very long. It operates against the cohesive elements of society.”
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/SocaridesErosion.php
His entire argument supposes a threat that does not numerically exist. Even if every adult gay person, fully out and political, and all voted lock step with the same uniform fervor which you and Socarides completely imagine, the numbers are not of any electoral import. I am not sure what new world order a much smaller subset of actual gay voters could possibly usher in that justifies your continued fear-speech.
The biggest cause of straight people’s problems are straight people.
So we have not yet identified the actual threat, David. What is it?
Given that you have been abandoned by the government in that your institutional bully is now in full retreat, what is there left to debate?
It seems to me if you came back off the ledge, gay people would not be “all in your face” or whatever the threat actually is. Try some live and let live and see how quiet things get, how much tempers come down. Maybe you don’t want that.
“Johnny, Have you ever seen a grown man naked?”
“Do you like gladiator movies, Johnny?”
To stay on topic, ‘Give me Ham on 5, Hold the Mayo’ .
GOLLY !!
shirley9999,
FWIW, I caught the reference but didn’t say anything about it. I was cleaning up my keyboard after dealing with my “drinking problem”.
Sqweak,
I understand you are far more impressed with you than others are, but you don’t win fans by begging for them.
Davidm2575 claims “I love gays, but it is very clear that you do not love me.”
Not seeing the evidence of your love, sorry.
It is not present in your comments about removal of homosexuality from our lexicon of mental diseases.
It is not present in your use of words such as “wholesome” to describe any leading of a life that does not include gay people.
It is not present in your made-up fantasy land you name “the gay lifestyle,” as if gay people all act a certain way, all of it worth exclusion and derision.
It is not present in your mean-spirited characterization that “activist gays” would dare “ride the coattails” of other pursuers of civil rights, as if gay people should shut up, sit down, and be excluded, just to suit some as-yet unstated threat you obviously feel. Your language is incredibly defensive.
If Mr. McClurkin wants to be ex-gay, fine. But when both of you feel motivated — by what we do not know — to use the same hateful language to show us how not-gay you are — is that what this is about? — you can expect resistance, and loudly.
If I did not love you, why would I bother with saying these difficult things to your face? I am trying to warn you that this kind of language from you continues to be destructive to both you and the gay people and their extended families you today insult instantly. What do you hope to gain by it?
James: “If Mr. McClurkin wants to be ex-gay, fine. But when both of you feel motivated — by what we do not know — to use the same hateful language to show us how not-gay you are — is that what this is about? — you can expect resistance, and loudly.”
I totally believe they are both totally not gay. Totally.
James Knauer wrote: “both of you feel motivated — by what we do not know — to use the same hateful language.”
You might consider that you have been trained to perceive my language as hateful. Sometimes the same truth articulated exactly the same way is perceived by some people as bitter but by others as sweetness.
James Knauer wrote: “It is not present in your comments about removal of homosexuality from our lexicon of mental diseases.”
I am just sharing facts. People can come into homosexuality through a variety of ways. I have heard from more than one man how they were molested sexually as a child and had absent fathers through childhood, then later developed homosexuality in adolescence. Some of these were very grateful to psychotherapists for helping them realign their sexuality and develop sexual attraction for women. That option has now been taken away from future generations. Is it really hatred on my part to question whether that is a good thing?
James Knauer wrote: “It is not present in your use of words such as “wholesome” to describe any leading of a life that does not include gay people.”
You misunderstood me. Wholesome does not describe any leading of a life other than gay. The ones like McClurkin who have been helped speak of their lives now as being so much better, like a hole in their life was filled. Please keep in mind that my comment about wholesome only applies to those who were helped by reparative therapy, because that’s how they describe how thankful they are that somebody cared enough to help them get out of that lifestyle.
James Knauer wrote: “It is not present in your made-up fantasy land you name “the gay lifestyle,” as if gay people all act a certain way, all of it worth exclusion and derision.”
It is not a made-up fantasy. There is a gay culture. Perhaps not every gay person is connected to that culture, but the culture definitely exists. Many of my gay friends have felt trapped by it.
James Knauer wrote: “It is not present in your mean-spirited characterization that “activist gays” would dare “ride the coattails” of other pursuers of civil rights, as if gay people should shut up, sit down, and be excluded, just to suit some as-yet unstated threat you obviously feel.”
My intent is not to tell them to shut up, but to urge them to be HONEST. It also is my intent to wake people up not to be deceived by their fallacious rhetoric. When I speak of activist gays, I hope you do not think I am speaking about all gays. I am talking about the ones whose mission in life it is to change our culture and make society approve of sexual immorality in all forms, both homosexual and heterosexual. They are the ones who are organized and spending lots of money to fight for gay marriage, for unisex bathrooms everywhere, for sex change operations, etc. They have framed the debate as a civil rights issue when it is not. It is a sexual freedom issue. The true issue of civil rights concerning the way Blacks have been treated is getting a huge blemish from the homosexual activists attempting to be the new civil rights movement. When it becomes clear over time that the gay issue is about sexual behavior and not a physical trait like skin color, it could put the equality issue of race into question in the minds of many. That is not a good thing.
My motives are not at all aligned as you have been trained to stereotype me. I ask you try to set aside your prejudice and preconceived notions about my motivations and attempt to ask about them instead. Assuming that I am a hater when I am not is not good.
nick
i can’t believe nobody else caught the airplane reference
i was going to tell you that you picked a bad time to stop sniffing glue.
and don’t call me shirley.
@Gene H:
“Suspect substance???” What, do you have to ask the PC Police before you laugh at something??? Go ahead, just give it a try! Here, say to yourself: “Oh my, Squeeky just wrote a Trayvon Martin song to the tune of Horst Wessel, the Nazi National Anthem!” OH my goodness! that is, that is, sooo ohhhh, ohhhh,. . . . . bwahahahaha . . . . ”
See, I bet you can do it if you just let yourself go!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
raff and Elaine, I was referencing Barbara Billingsley great non pc cameo in the movie, Airplane. The flight attendant was having problems understanding two black men. Barbara comes up and says, “I speak jive.” She then proceeded to translate. I needed her for a few characters in The Wire for that purpose. Although, pearls on a woman are hot!
nick,
You got a thing for those stay-at-home June Cleaver type moms who wear aprons and pearls and always have cookies and milk waiting for her boys when they get home from school?
😉
There are times where a song or music video can be of great quality but the underlying lyrics or how the song is heralded and the history surrounding it makes it repulsive to others.
nick,
How about Hugh Beumont along with Barbara Billingsley and Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers while you are at it?? 🙂
No, Sqweak. I don’t think what you write is wonderful. To be clear, it’s a matter of suspect substance, not style.
leejcaroll,
I am sorry you had to go through what you did. There is a special place in hell for people who hurt children.
“I think people like me are good anecdotal “evidence” that homosexuality is rarely a choice” I agree with you. “Rarely a choice” would be the possible scenario that people who endure abuse struggle with their sexuality. Could that be Mr. McClurkin’s situation? Did he have kindergarten crushes on girls prior to the abuse and then after the abuse things changed? The article does not say.
The article stated that he suffered molestation when he was young and that he was no longer homosexual. That led me to wonder whether the abuse had anything to do with his struggle with sexuality. Can abuse affect a person’s sexuality in that way since it can affect sexuality in other ways? I do not know, perhaps it doesn’t at all ever; but, it seemed an interesting question to explore. At this point, it seems curiosity might have killed the cat.
Gene H:
Oh, you just don’t want to admit it was good! Those were some powerful lines in the second stanza, “his Profile there in chalk lines”, which I made even stronger in the second edition.
I guess if it wasn’t for the melody, you’d like it. But really, youse guys ought to get you some bass drums and bugles and march around to it. Hmmm, maybe I will do an arrangement for acoustic guitar???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Sqweak,
Eh, I don’t think anything you write is wonderful other than in the abstract that you’re free to say it, Girl Propagandist.
@ Sturmfuhrer Gene H:
The “Brown Pants” Brigade are at it again:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/fear-of-violent-attacks-stalls-ex-gay-pride-event-previously-to-be-held-at-family-research-council-100220/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
(OH, PS: Did you like that wonderful song I wrote on the other thread about Trayvon??? It kind of fits with this!)