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?As an American voter who has criticized President Bush for not including members of the opposition party in his wartime government - and for not even listening to the viewpoints of those who disagree with him - it would be hypocritical of me to withdraw a possible vote for Sen. Obama over this McClurkin appearance. Does what the gospel singer said make my skin crawl? Yes. Do I think his viewpoints promote hatred? Of course I do. But in his interview with the Advocate , Obama makes a point. Playing the game the extreme left wants him to play would prevent him from uniting a country that hasn't been this divided since the Civil War.
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.
To be sure, McClurkin should have never been asked to perform. But once he was, Obama and his campaign handled it as best they could.
I'm not happy. But, for me, this wasn't the deal breaker it could have been.
