It's funny, I couldn't tell from the photo whether Rev. Andy Sidden, pastor of Garden of Grace United Church of Christ in Columbia, SC was white. After all, I have a family full of relatives who aren't any darker than Sidden.
It boggles the mind that the Obama campaign would select a white pastor to deal with a situation that is awash in black homophobia. Politics 101.
Rev. Sidden is supposed to counter the presence of the recloseted/now-decloseted anti-gay Grammy winning gospel singer Donnie McClurkin at the “Embrace the Change” concerts in South Carolina, sponsored by the Obama campaign designed to court the black vote. Sadly, Sidden is now an unfortunate victim in this debate. I'm sure that whatever message he would deliver would be sensitive and entirely appropriate in many ways, but part of the message has to be that you can be black and gay, and black and gay-affirming. Barack Obama is clearly showing he doesn't understand the need of the religious black community to see one of their own deliver that message.
Sidden was on The Mike Signorile Show today. I just spoke to Mike (will have audio later), and he said that Sidden didn't consider himself very politically active, and that he accepted the mission not because he was an Obama supporter, but because he couldn't turn down anyone asking him to pray. One of the reasons for his selection, he said, was because he was a UCC minister — and because he was openly gay. When Mike asked if Sidden was chosen because of his race, he said no, and did not deny Jasmyne Cannick's description of him as white in her post on the matter.
The last thing a crowd of black folks who have a problem with homosexuality needs is: 1) to be "told" by the Obama campaign that a message about tolerance must be delivered from a white voice of faith, and 2) to have their beliefs confirmed that being gay is "a white man's perversion." Coming from a white pastor under these circumstances, can only be seen as paternalistic and patronizing; the shields of defensiveness will go up, the message will be ignored.
The most stinging message that the Obama campaign has sent is that they apparently didn't see the relevance or necessity of removing the ability of religious blacks to stay in denial, that somehow there is not an intersection of being black and gay. This move renders us invisible yet again, as politically expendable, because it telegraphs that it's too politically volatile to address the division in the community by having them confront one of their own — black gay and gay-affirming ministers — when it comes to looking at bigotry.
Alvin McEwan of Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters:
No, I can’t cut these folks any slack. Did they ask the National Black Justice Coalition for a recommendation for a pastor? I certainly saw a whole lot of them when I attended the organization's National Black Church Summit this year.We have been given the hook, pushed to the side, had the trapdoor to the alligator pit released under our feet.
LGBTs of color haven't been just pushed to the back of the bus in this controversy. We have been kicked off of the bus and told to find our own way home.
Perhaps Obama's people couldn't find an openly gay black pastor in time for the event? I don't know. I guess I will give them a little slack.
Again — could the Obama campaign not type Google.com in their browsers?
Why look, here are four right here…
Rev. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Rev. Benjamin Reynolds, Rev. Zach Jones and Rev. Dyan McRay.
I even had audio up of these folks for the feeble Obama camp to listen to if they wanted to do some research.
What about Rev. Deborah Johnson? Bishop Yvette Flunder? Rev. Irene Monroe?
Forget surfing the web — Obama and his staff were obviously present at the CNN's YouTube Presidential debate. Did they have iPods on when Rev. Reggie Longcrier, pastor of Exodus Missionary Outreach Church in Hickory, N.C. asked this question of John Edwards?
Certainly I would have had Longcrier on speed dial after that.Sen. Edwards has said his opposition to gay marriage has been influenced by his Southern Baptist background. We know religion was once used to justify slavery, segregation and women not being allowed to vote, all of which today are recognized as unconstitutional and socially and morally wrong. So why is it still acceptable to use religion to justify denying gay and lesbian American their full and equal rights.
Then again, perhaps no gay or gay-affirming black pastors were willing to extract Obama from this mess of his own making. Who knows at this point.
Terrance has a couple of suggestions in his post "Obama’s Crap Sandwich, With Extra Homo", if you Obama folks (that is, if you still have your jobs) — Rev. Horace Griffin, author of Their Own Receive Them Not: African American Lesbians And Gays in Black Churches and Rev. Irene Monroe as well.
Political amateur hour, folks. You have to wonder what was going through their heads.
[UPDATE (1:45 PM Fri.): I just spoke with Rev. Sidden directly — he identified himself — and stated plainly that he’s white; since the question was still open in some minds — and he didn’t state affirmatively in Mike Signorile’s interview, I decided to put that to rest.]
Related:
* HRC to Obama: no place for a homophobe on the stage in SC
* Black media ignores the Obama / anti-gay recloseted McClurkin controversy
* McClurkin bobs and weaves, Team Obama scrambles as HRC lowers the boom
* Why is Obama touring with ‘ex-gay’ homophobe Donnie McClurkin?
* Obama won’t back down from SC concert with homobigot ex-gay Donnie McClurkin
* Donnie McClurkin isn’t the only homophobe on the bill with Obama
* Audio from my appearance on the Michelangelo Signorile show on Sirius Out Q Tuesday.
20 Responses to “Team Obama: recruiting a white pastor=bad idea”
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“Embrace the Change” is not the best name for these concerts.
Let the gay white man tell the black gospel audiance what to think! What a @(@** BRILLIANT idea! Who needs rhetorical authority in the age of Bush?
//there is going to be a “real men of genius” ad based on this, I can just feel it.
This is starting to look like either a case of not knowing what the fallout from this would be, or just not caring. So, it’s either naivety or cynicism. Neither inspires much confidence.
You don’t think black religious folks know people who are black and gay, and black and gay-affirming? I know black people who are gay and gay-affirming, and I don’t even know all that many black people any more.
Put on a recording of Bayard Rustin for these people.
Ugh, Terrance. Incompetence would be a better reason. If this is just very, very stupid and unskilled, hackish, pathetic politics, there is still yet hope. If they just didn’t give a damn, it’s _still_ unskilled politics, but unskilled politics practiced by arrogant pricks.
Pam,
You have cred as a blogosphere commentator/reporter. Could you just email the Obama campaign and ask for an explanation? (Granted, it’s hard to imagine how this can be explained, but it might be worthwhile to get the skinny straight from the horse’s mouth.)
Obama doesn’t have to look any further than capitol hill to find a gay affirming black minister. He happens to be my congressman, the Reverend Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. It tells me something that I needed (and didn’t want) to know about Obama that he chose not to.
Ummeli has a good idea; I’d be curious what exactly Obama is thinking as well. Terrence has it right, I suspect. Not good.
Damn, Obama, that wasn’t smart….
*sigh*
As long as the pastor isn’t homophobic and anti-choice, then I would recruit him/her. I am disappointed in Sen. Barack Obama that he has an anti-gay pastor. Glad that Sen. Hillary Clinton hasn’t taken that route. Hopefully, she won’t take that route.
Hillary already recruited support from homophobic AME pastor Harold Mayberry of Oakland.
From the San Francisco Chronicle March 14, 2004:
Like most religious opponents of same-sex marriage, the Rev. Harold Mayberry, pastor of the First African Methodist Church in Oakland, has preached against homosexuality to his congregation of 2,800.
However, he does not think a federal amendment is necessary. The scriptures direct people how to lead a moral life, he said.
“I’m comfortable in what I believe in,” Mayberry said. “I’m not rejecting people. As God loves, we love. I don’t reject thieves, I reject thievery.'’
From http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=2857
On Friday, August, 10, Senator Hillary Clinton stopped by the African American Art and Culture Complex for a meeting with Bay Area African-American ministers and community leaders.
“Senator Clinton has an excellent concept about how she plans to address issues surrounding crime and education. She described how she has partnered with leaders in New York to create a charter school specifically for African American men and notes that the Allen Cathedral AME Church charter school in Jamaica Queens, New York could be used as a model of how to help educate African American young men. Her mentioning of the school shows that she’s aware of outstanding successful examples of education in this country. The way she addressed the need for the federal government to partner with inner cities suggests that she’s not just focusing on international issues but that she’s concerned with domestic ones - particularly crime and violence in our communities. I want a president who knows how to strike a balance between addressing international and domestic challenges facing this country,” said Reverend Dr. Harold R. Mayberry, Senior Pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church and Chairperson of Network for Interfaith Action.
Of those you listed, 2 are in CA and 1 in Boston, 4 are women. Those who want an excuse would use regionalism or gender as their excuse. The one in Boston has a post partially titled “Obama, Vote-Whore….”
As you noted, though, they don’t seem to have looked deeply or far.
Incompetence is a generous interpretation. It also could be that they just added this fellow to placate white gay folks, and don’t care what happens to Black queers.
those who want an excuse would use regionalism or gender as their excuse.
The could have also selected the Rev. Reggie Longcrier, who’s from my state, NC, right next door. He’s the pastor who asked the question about marriage equality of John Edwards at the YouTube debate.
…am i really the only person who doesn’t think this is a scandal? this whole thing? the “scandal” over it seems to be just an outgrowth of the ~two year election cycle~
…i mean, really. this kind of shit… this whole “cover all bases all the time while being all things to all people”… it just exhausts and overstretches our candidates. the thing about having a “big tent” is that you’re going to have dissenting opinions. yes, we’d all like to change the attitudes of religious black folk… but they’re not gonna change overnight and barry hussein’s choice of minister isn’t going to be the catalyst. do we ~really~ have to throw these kinds of stumbling blocks in front of our candidates? christ, it ain’t like he’s (race-pandering) hillary.
There’s a link on the word “decloseted” in the third paragraph. I’m interested in reading what’s behind it, but it points to a “page not found”. Does anyone know where it should go?
Obscurifer — I think it’s this:
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3418
I think it is strange that more vehemence is thrown at this pastor that at the religious bigots he is trying to convert. I also think it is ironic that blacks would discriminate based on something as arbitrary as sexual orientation, given their own history of arbitrary subjugation.
Lastly, I think the idea that only members of one’s race can convince you to not be a bigot is not just untrue but irresponsible.
On the other hand, Genarlow Wilson is out, finally, so that’s a plus.
Slactivist is currently doing a series about the Gay-hatin’ Gospel and where it comes from. I’d be interested in knowing whether Pam (or other PoC) think black religious homophobia is substantially different than white. I have assumed that black homophobia has an extra-large component of “I may be low on the totem pole but at least I’m better than *them*” to it (is there a short way of saying that?), but that’s my assumption. And I don’t know if there’s a big difference between black men & women in their attitudes.
The book being discussed at Slacktivist’s is the latest from the Barna Group, “unChristian” (unlinked to avoid Moderation Limbo). The Barna researchers found a huge generation gap in attitudes toward gay among the (presumably mostly white) evangelicals they studied. Basically, most young Christians know someone who’s at least a bit out, and that’s really tipping them over the line to accepting gay rights, marriage equality, etc.
Do you-all think most young blacks know someone who’s out, yet? Is it going to take something more than time to get there?