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
Is bourbon a naturally occurring substance? How about gin? Brandy? Champagne? Grappa?
OS,
me thinks he doth protest too much!
What an onerous dogma.
David,
For someone who claims to not be gay, does not have any gay family members (that you know of), and who admits that homosexuals and their families have zero impact on you and yours, you certainly are spending an awful lot of time and energy on this matter. You keep talking about some kind of “homosexual agenda,” but have yet to make any kind of clear and concise statement as to what this “homosexual agenda” is. Since you are not homosexual, and don’t have any family members who are (that you know of), how can you be so sure of what agenda ten percent of the general population have?
I know homosexuals who are Democrat, Republican, Independent, Methodist, Episcopalian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic and atheist. Gun owners and anti-gun. Combat veterans and conscientious objectors. Some are police officers, judges and prosecutors, while some are murderers, thieves and drug dealers.
Homosexual Republicans appear to be an exercise in cognitive dissonance, but they exist.
How did all these gays come together and coordinate their secret agenda?
“. . . the dogma of equivalency.”
What on onerous dogma.
Gene,
Facts are pesky things. I was discussing this blog with a friend yesterday. He is a forensic psychologist with many years experience, and has seen both the best and worst of human nature. When I told him about the Natural Law meme, he just laughed. His observation was, “Homosexuality is natural law. If homosexuals don’t reproduce, and the number of homosexuals in the general population stays at about ten percent, then new ones are being created each generation at about the same rate. To say they are an aberration doesn’t make any sense”
He went on to say, “Since that is the case, then the existence of homosexuals as a constant percentage of the population over generations IS natural law.”
He went on to add that the ones protesting so loudly that homosexuality is an aberration tend to be fundy religionists who claim God doesn’t make mistakes. If the big guy doesn’t make mistakes, how do we account for ten percent of the population being gay? Anyone who has taken Statistics 101 knows that number is far outside chance.
OS wrote: He went on to say, “Since that is the case, then the existence of homosexuals as a constant percentage of the population over generations IS natural law.”
According to this rationale, alcoholism IS natural law.
Criticizing a concept by expressing a lack of understanding of the concept is fallacious.
Homosexuality isn’t a ideology, David.
It’s a naturally occurring sexual orientation.
Thinking that marriage is a heterosexual only endeavor requiring procreation is an ideology.
And pedophila and homosexuality are not related. The vast number of pedophiles are heterosexuals. Nice try at a false equivalence. Again. And by nice, I mean weak and ignorant.
Gene H wrote: “Homosexuality isn’t a ideology, David.”
I didn’t say it was. There is a homosexual ideology, however. It is an ideology that says same sex attraction is normal and good and is equivalent to opposite sex attraction. It is an ideology that encourages people like McClurkin to embrace homosexuality as his normal sexuality.
Gene H wrote: “And pedophila and homosexuality are not related.”
There are many ways in which they are related. For one, they are both about sex. That is a relationship. Second, almost all pedophiles are men, and although most have sex with little girls, about one-third of them have sex with little boys. Considering that less than 3% of the population exhibit homosexual behavior, this statistic that over 30% of pedophiles having same sex abuse means that they are disproportionately represented in pedophiles. Nevertheless, this was not the point in my post. The relationship between pedophilia and homosexuality that McEwen was complaining about was how McClurkin mentions being abused by a man as a child, and how this caused him to struggle with same sex attraction later. Many other men have also made this connection. It makes sense that when a man sexually stimulates a young boy, that boy may associate sexual pleasure with being with another man. This is how sexual fetishes develop. It is basic Pavlovian conditioning.
This is the problem with homosexual ideology. It is all about accepting the dogma of equivalency. Once that sacred dogma is accepted, they stop thinking about the psychology of sexuality. They stop thinking about sexual morality. When homosexuality, bisexuality, heterosexuality is all equivalent, there is no need to examine any of these things or to give it much thought. All conversation becomes about defending the precious dogma.
Oops.
Donnie McClurkin Not Being Truthful About Anti-Gay Comments (VIDEO)
By Alvin McEwen
Posted: 08/14/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alvin-mcewen/donnie-mcclurkin-anti-gay-comments_b_3751553.html
Excerpt:
In 2007 I was a part of a contingent that protested against an Obama fundraising concert featuring gospel singer and “ex-gay” Donnie McClurkin in Columbia, S.C. That was the event where McClurkin said the following:
“Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay when I have been touched by the same feelings, when I have suffered with the same feelings. Don’t call me a homophobe when I love everybody. … Don’t tell me that I stand up and I say vile words against the gay community, because I don’t. I don’t speak against the homosexual. I tell you that God delivered me from homosexuality.”
It’s sad how people tend to forget that McClurkin made those comments at the concert itself, before a huge host of supporters who gave him a standing ovation. It’s relatively easy to make bold statements in front of supporters.
McClurkin never specifically addressed us protestors or our concerns, which had nothing to do with his claim of being an “ex-gay” and everything to do with comments he made connecting homosexuality with pedophilia and child molestation. He was being very disingenuous then, just as he is being now when faced with new controversy over other anti-gay comments he made.
On Saturday McClurkin was disinvited from a D.C. concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom because of the “potential controversy” his participation would cause.
Now, while McClurkin has been quick to play the victim and claim that he has never spoken derogatorily about the gay community, the video below contradicts his claim. It is footage of McClurkin at the Church of God in Christ Youth Conference 2009. At the 6:17 mark he begins harping on “feminine men.” Then, at the 8:23 mark, he begins talking about how he was molested when he was 8 years old. It’s an awful story, which he proceeds to make worse by linking pedophilia with homosexuality…
Through it all McClurkin seems to be implying that the existence of gay men is the result of a lack of good parents and an abundance of evil predators. That sounds pretty derogatory to me.
Don’t get me wrong: My heart goes out to him. What happened to him as a child is an awful thing, but homosexuality is not determined by pedophilia. Gay men are not the products of child molestation. It’s an ugly thing to imply otherwise, and for him to now claim that he has not spoken derogatorily about gay people when there is hard evidence to the contrary is highly dishonest. One could even say McClurkin is lying.
McEwen here is guilty of the same mistake here as most others in this forum who have been deceived by the homosexual agenda. He is judging McClurkin based upon his own bigotry. His mind has been trained to think that anybody who looks at homosexuality differently from him is bigoted, anti-gay, homophobic, filled with hatred toward homosexuals, etc. It is kind of like him accepting certain statements and then having a checklist, and when somebody crosses his preconceived notions from that checklist, he moves them over to the category of being a bad person, a homophobe who hates gays.
McEwen has not demonstrated any untruthfulness on the part of McClurkin. McClurkin is not speaking against the homosexual. He is speaking against the ideology that calls it good, and he speaks a message of hope to a lot of homosexuals. Is a culture that feminizes men related? Yes. Is a pedophile who preys on someone of the same sex related to homosexuality? Yes. This event turned McClurkin toward homosexuality. This doesn’t mean EVERYONE who is homosexual suffered from this kind of abuse. The criticisms by McEwen are way off base, and it is completely unreasonable for him to judge McClurkin as being untruthful.
Also, what McEwen fails to recognize is that Martin Luther King, Jr. NEVER would have been on McEwen’s side in this gay rights nonsense. Remember how King told a boy confessing to same sex attraction that he had a problem and was on the road to fixing it because he recognized it as a problem? It is too bad that Martin Luther King, Jr. is not here to keep these people from hijacking his work.
Get some sleep! >_<
@VestalV:
I could probably dig into all of it, and become more conversant, but the topic just doesn’t interest me all that much. Some small percentage of people are just going to be that way, no matter what the laws are. Frankly, I am probably more of a bad person for just being so apathetic towards them, and not caring too much how they screw themselves up. Which I should feel more guilty about.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky,
You disbelieved the science, you said, because it had motives other than truth seeking.
You disbelieve studies from the Al Gore Oil Company because it has motives other than truth seeking.
You may leave open the possibility in one case of not doing so in the future, but in both cases you’ve impugned the source.
I don’t know anything about sexual orientation studies. I expect that any initial attempts to learn about it would first encounter an upper layer of self-serving information from both sides. But I don’t think, if you were to dig down and become familiar with the field, that you wouldn’t be able to sort out what’s true and what’s not true.
All the best,
Vestal Virgin
@Vestal V:
I believe there is a difference between “not necessarily believing” a source, and “disbelieving” or “impugning” a source. For example, assume I do not believe a Global Warming study from Al Gore Oil Company. Must I necessarily believe that it is wrong as a part of not believing it? I don’t think so.
If I simply don’t believe it, then I might believe the next study to come out. If I think the study is wrong because it is from The Al Gore Oil Company, then I probably will not believe the next one either. There is a difference between skepticism, and denial based on the source.
Or at least, I think so.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky,
You said, “Frankly, I don’t believe many of the studies I have read over the last few days from either side. ‘Science’ quite often allows itself to become the handmaiden of politics or moneyed interests.”
Then, a couple of hours later, you said, “Impugning the source is the beginning and end of analysis. How simple a life you must lead!”
Vestal Virgin
James: I was politely ignoring the statements that I didn’t find credible.
Juliet N., add past trauma. See David’s confessions upthread regarding “being attacked” by “homosexuals.”
That is a sad story. That’s another trait I got from my grandfather (who was a carpenter): respect for trees.
raff,
That old goat would sit on his back patio and throw firecrackers out in the yard to scare the animals away, especially birds. He was about 80 years old when he vandalized the trees, and managed to devalue the property of everyone else. He died a while back. Would you believe his obituary describing his life’s accomplishments emphasized how much he enjoyed mowing his grass?
After cutting the trees down, he had the stumps and root balls dug up and the holes filled in with topsoil, over which he planted grass. A few of those root balls were about fifteen feet in diameter. He would get on his riding mower about three or four times a week and mow his huge yard. He was irritated with me because I refused to cut down my trees that adjoined his property.
OS,
I didn’t think Mr. T. lived in your neck of the woods!
Lee,
There used to be a big orchard out behind our house dating back at least a hundred years. Those two cherry trees and a lone pear tree are all that is left. The pear tree is in really sad shape, but still make pears every year. I don’t think the owner of the cherry trees wants to discourage the critters. We had a mutual neighbor who hated squirrels, birds and leaves. So he cut down all 21 trees in his yard. Those trees ranged in age from 160 years to over 300 years old. Oak, hickory, poplar and sycamore.
OS That’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. What a shame.
That stinks. Sad that yours died natural deaths, except for that courageous pear tree!. I feel sorry for your neighbor, talk about a hater. I guess it would not have made sense to put in the obit how he got all that grass to mow.