In an interview with The Advocate, Barack Obama is defending his track record of standing up for LGBT rights. I think that many of the things that McClurkin has said are reprehensible. Kredwyn's currently rec'd diary is hard to argue with and vividly shows what's at stake in our current cultural struggle. Kredwyn is right about what is at stake. I also think that Obama is right to point to his track record to put this scandal in context.
Advocate: I know you’re in a difficult position here trying to balance these two constituencies -- but by keeping McClurkin on the tour, didn't you essentially choose your Christian constituency over your gay constituency?
Obama: No, I profoundly disagree with that. This is not a situation where I have backed off my positions one iota. You’re talking to somebody who talked about gay Americans in his convention speech in 2004, who talked about them in his announcement speech for the president of the United States, who talks about gay Americans almost constantly in his stump speeches. If there’s somebody out there who’s been more consistent in including LGBT Americans in his or her vision of what America should be, then I would be interested in knowing who that person is.
One of the things that always comes up in presidential campaigns is, if you’ve got multiple supporters all over the place, should the candidate then be held responsible for the every single view of every one of his supporters? And obviously that’s not possible. And if I start playing that game, then it will be very difficult for me to do what I think I can do best, which is bring the country together.
http://advocate.com/...
There's some that have made it abundantly clear that nothing in Obama's track record will make up for having McClurkin speak and sing at this event. Obama has, to put it lightly, stepped into a field of land mines. However, I think that Obama deserves an answer here. Is there a candidate that has been more consistent? Perhaps Kucinich, but I don't think that a reasonable case can be made for any of the other candidates.
In addition to having been more outspoken than the other leading candidates against homophobia, Obama is also the only leading candidate to support the full repeal of DOMA. Furthermore, Obama has worked as a legislator to pass LGBT human rights legislation. In the Illinois Senate he sponsored legislation to ban LGBT discrimination. In the US Senate he has co-sponsored expansion of hate crimes legislation through the Local Law Enforcement Act, has supported expanding ENDA to protect LGBT rights, and has so-sponsored legislation expanding Medicare coverage for low-income AIDS patients. He has also been outspoken for ending DADT.
Does this make up for the McClurkin appearance? That's not for me to judge. Certainly, I understand the passion that being told your identity is a disease and a sin to be cured invokes. It's wrong. I would like to suggest that winning the support of McClurkin and McClurkin's audience while unambiguously condemning the hate might be seen in a different light than bloggers like Aravosis (who has been remarkably silent on Hillary Clinton's relationships with anti-gay preachers and politicians) have put it. I think that there are some that think the best way to advance their cause is to harm Obama as much as possible over this, no matter his positions or track record. (Emphasis on "some", because I know the passion is real in most cases.) To be a feared constituency is to be an influential one. That may well be true.
For me, LGBT rights are one of many issues that I think Obama is the strongest candidate to deliver change on. A personal note: My wife wept in my arms when her father declared that he wouldn't be at our wedding if we held it at "the house of sin" of her gay uncle. These issues divide families, divide our party, and divide our nation. It's just tremendously sad. If I didn't truly believe that Obama was a candidate that can move us in the direction of unity, I wouldn't write this diary. So, yeah. I'm a "true believer" if you want to dismiss the arguments I'm making on those grounds. I think that's an ad hominem though and not nearly as good of a response as answering the challenge to say which candidate has a better track record.
I will conclude by noting that out of all of this Obama is the only candidate so far to condemn McClurkin's views. If all of those other candidates are supposed to be such stronger advocates for LGBT rights, what's keeping them from seizing an opportunity to pile on? IMHO, before progressives who support equal rights for all jump ship from supporting Obama, we had better think about whether we like the look of the undersides of buses.