I’ve always liked you. Your speech in 2004 was a beacon in a very dark time. You indeed brought us hope, not just in our ultimately futile desire for a Kerry victory, but in an idea that America could be healed, that the red states and the blue states could come together and celebrate the things we have in common rather than railing against the things we don’t. I thought it was too early for you to seek the White House, but I have watched your campaign with interest, fully prepared to sign on with you in the general if you earned the nomination. I thought you represented a reduction in partisan rancor, a new sense of American unity and positive change. And I loved the way you talked about faith as a means to achieve those goals.
Now I want to tell you to go to Hell.
I’ll leave aside your new dabbling in Social Security hysteria, your lame attempts at playing gotcha with Senator Clinton over Iran and the real lack of leadership you have shown in the Senate. The reason I am pissed is obviously your association with Donnie McClurkin.
I am a gay man. I am proud to say that. In fact, I am happy to say it. Using your rubric, I suppose this means I have nothing to fear from Mr. McClurkin. He’s only fighting a war against unhappy gays. The fact that you are parsing the man’s language in the first place is but the latest insult in this very insulting affair.
Let me be perfectly clear: Any man who tells you he has been cured of homosexuality, any group that tells you they can "treat" the homosexuality out of a person -- really, anyone who tells you homosexuality is a choice in the first place -- is an insane person. He is disordered. There is something seriously wrong with him.
I did not choose to be gay any more than I chose to be white, have curly hair or sport size twelve feet. In my 32 years on this planet I have made exactly one choice in regards to my sexual orientation: I chose to be honest about it, to accept it of myself and to expect the people I care about to accept it as well. This is the only choice anyone truly makes about being gay or not being gay (or being straight or not being straight.)
I understand that not everyone believes me in this regard. Some do believe it is a choice. And often the people, like Mr. McClurkin, who espouse this believe have made a choice. But it wasn’t a choice between gay or straight. It was a choice between honesty and deceit, between health and disorder, between being happy and being suicidal.
You are running for President of all the states. I understand this. You need to reach out to people of all faiths, of all beliefs. I understand – I applaud – you attempts to reach out to more conservative churches. We need to bring people of every faith into the party because I truly believe we, as a party, more fully represent the teachings of Christ. We are kinder, we are more inclusive and we believe it is our responsibility to help each other. There is an important place for people of faith in our party.
But Donnie McClurkin is not a person of faith. He is a crazy person. And his particular form of psychosis is not only to hate himself, but to teach others to hate themselves in the same way. He may claim that his disordered crusade is done out of love. But that is the ultimate lie. Jesus taught us to love each other, to reach out to the poor and help to heal the sick or infirm. He did not teach us to hate ourselves or to peddle false cures. And he certainly did not teach us to hate.
I may hope for a Presidential candidate who will simply say that the "debate" over homosexuality is over, that we are equal citizens of the Republic, deserving of the same rights as everyone else and that anyone who says otherwise is simply an uneducated bigot not worthy of our time. But I am realist. I know we are not there yet as a nation. So I can support a candidate who, say, favors civil unions over marriage. I am willing to compromise.
But when presented with a person who not only clearly hates himself, but all gays and lesbians, a person who accuses me of trying to harm children, a person who claims that my very being is a disease from which I must be cured, I expect any candidate I am to support, or any thinking person for that matter, to immediately see that wretched man for exactly what he is: a bigot.
Pundits will say that you lost the gay vote when you refused to cancel the appearance by Mr. McClurkin or when you allowed him to emcee the event or even your idiotic press release about happy gays (As opposed to the, what, uppity ones? You should be ashamed of yourself). But I will tell you when you lost my vote. You lost it when you associated yourself with this man in the first place. He is hatred personified and the fact that he cloaks that evil in faith makes his doubly dangerous.
But you went beyond just talking to the man. You gave him a microphone, you gave him a stage. You gave him your stage. And that can only mean one of two things. Either you agree with him or you are an unbelievable cynic, willing to trade the gay constituency for the religious one. (Seeing the two as mutually exclusive was your first sin, sir.) You didn’t just quietly dis gay voters. You did it as loudly as possible. You let us know, in no uncertain terms, that not only are we unimportant to your campaign strategy, but that you see us as diseased and malevolent.
Mr. Senator, message received. You will not receive my vote. Nor will you receive my partner’s vote, nor my parents, or his parents or their friends, or my friends’ votes. Because I may be gay, but I am still a member of a family. And unlike the families Mr. McClurkin seeks to make, my family is one filled with love and honesty and actual Christian values.
You have lost my vote. And not just in the primary (where, I must admit, I was already planning on voting for Senator Edwards) but in the general. Not the general election next November; you lost any shot at the nomination – and the Vice Presidency -- last week. No, you lost my vote in 2012, in 2016 in 2020.
Senator Obama, you have lost my vote forever.
Cross-posted on my blog, Bad Tiki