Addendeum, April 16, 2008: I will repeat what I have written to everyone who has commented on this story:
The reason we published David’s story is that it is representative of a much larger issue affecting the LGBT community as a whole: the wall between straight and gay — and the question of whether or not this story, or any like it, would have occurred, or turned out differently, if the couple had been heterosexual. That’s not for me to judge — but the question is worth putting out there, just to make people think about that larger issue.
Additionally: If you have a concern about any of the specifics of this article, you should contact David directly — his email address is at the end of the article.
At the same time, if you send a comment on this story, and do not provide a valid email address, your comment will simply be forwarded to David, and that will be the end of our communication with you.
You won’t hold us (that’s the royal “us”) accountable if you find something you don’t agree with, or don’t like, or something that doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to.
And as it says in the very last line:
If you don’t agree with all of the above, then please go somewhere else.
From Sapph: There are countless stories from the frontlines of the neverending “culture wars” that, for one reason or another, will never be told; David Nahmod’s is, tragically, representative of millions you will never hear.
Bear in mind that this is not just one man’s story; it is a clarion call for all of us:
For the body is not one member, but many.
And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
— 1 Corinthians 12:14, 26
We salute David for his courage and tenacity in getting his and Beecher’s story out there — and we’ll keep you, as David keeps us, updated.
For the past three years, my former partner, Beecher Goodwin, has lived with Kathryn Rock and Stephen Polich. Kathryn and Stephen are a straight conservative couple in Surprise, Arizona.
Kathryn Rock is the reason Beecher and I are no longer together. Starting in 2001, when she lived up the street from us in Hoboken, New Jersey, she plotted to destroy our relationship. She bragged about this. Her new husband, Stephen, whom I’ve never met or spoken too, was only too happy to assist her. Beecher’s own siblings, Harold and Laura Goodwin, both born-again Christians who say they don’t want him to be gay, also took part in this. His cousin, Donna Cifaldi, became the final participant.
What these people, who claim to “love” Beecher, did to get us out of each other’s lives, what they turned Beecher into, is unimaginably evil.
My relationship with Beecher was always a little “edgy.” Beecher is a severe manic depressive, while I’ve battled a minor case of the same affliction. Beecher is also dyslexic, and borderline illiterate. He suffers memory losses. He’s on SSI. He was easy prey for a sociopath like Kathryn Rock.
Beecher and I met in August, 1999. One year later, we moved in together. Though our afflictions created problems, we were relatively happy. We took care of each other. We were a comfort to each other. People who knew us then thought we were charming together.
Things began to change in late 2001, when he met Kathryn Rock. Almost instantly, she was his best friend, above all others. Soon after, Beecher and I began to fight constantly. Suddenly, we were always angry. We became uncomfortable around each other. In 2003, we moved to San Francisco and completely stopped having sex. I loved him with all my heart, yet I couldn’t bare the thought of touching him anymore. At the time, I had no idea what was causing this. Because in spite of all the problems we still claimed to love each other deeply. I suspect we still do.
When Beecher left, in February, 2005, we were barely speaking, and glad to be rid of each other. Kathryn Rock was now living in Arizona with her new husband Stephen. They came to San Francisco to get him, to “rescue” him from me.
Soon after, I had occasion to speak to Rene, Kathryn’s landlord back in Hoboken, and to Mrs. Luttrell, Kathryn’s former mother-in-law. Both of them told me that Rock had been plotting our breakup for years.
“Oh, David, Kathy does not like you,” said Rene. “She said she was going to get you and get Beecher away from you.”
What Mrs. Luttrell had to say was even more disturbing. “I met Beecher at Kathy and Will’s house in New Jersey,” she recalled. “That Beecher, he’d believe anything anyone told him. Is he a retard? That’s what Kathy told us about him.”
Mrs. Luttrell told me that she personally witnessed Kathryn Rock planting negative thoughts about me into Beecher’s head, using standard tried and true brainwashing techniques. Several therapists have since told me that this is a relatively easy thing to do to a person suffering from mental illness, as Beecher is.
Mrs. Luttrell went on to tell me about how Kathryn caused similar problems for several members of their family. It turned out that Kathryn moved in with Stephen Polich only four days after splitting up with Will Luttrell. Kathryn lied to Will about the new relationship — she wanted Will to continue sending her palimony.
What shocked me even more is when I found out that Kathryn had admitted to Beecher’ sister, Laura Goodwin, that she was deliberately causing trouble between us. Six months before we broke up, Kathryn told Laura: “I’m going to get Beecher out of there no matter what I have to do.” Laura remained silent…
That Laura could allow this to be done to her own brother’s relationship defies all laws of logic and decency. But by her own admission, Laura Goodwin is a Christian who thinks homosexuality is wrong.
During our final year together, Beecher suffered from severe headaches and anxiety attacks. The pain he was in was excruciating. Toward the end, he told me he needed to leave “so the headaches will stop.” As soon as he moved into the Polich/Rock household, the headaches indeed stopped. I now realize that Kathryn’s brainwashing were the cause of those attacks. Kathryn Rock hurt Beecher on purpose so she could pretend to “rescue” him from me. Beecher’s own sister supported this.
In spite of all the evil and ugliness that Kathryn Rock instigated, I was, at one point, ready to let it go. I spoke to him on the phone a few times, and he seemed happy there. I hadn’t seen him happy in years. More than anything, I wanted him to be happy. I decided to let him go and forget him.
Then a letter from his life insurance company showed up in my mailbox. I forwarded it to the address in Surprise.
Kathryn Rock returned the letter to me, in a hand-addressed envelope with her return address label on it. (I still have this.)
I called his sister Laura, mistaken in my belief that she’d want him to get his mail.
In May, 2006, I received an ugly piece of hate mail; I still have it. Beecher claimed he was living in a Spanish villa with his wealthy new lover. I needed to get over him, he said. I needed to stop harassing his family about getting back together with him. He clearly did not know about the mail I had for him.
I wonder if Beecher fully understood everything that was in that ridiculous letter. He can barely read and write. He cannot operate a computer, yet the letter was computer generated. When I finally spoke to him, nearly a year later, he admitted that Kathryn Rock wrote that letter “for him.”
I asked him what it said. He wasn’t sure.
During that year, Beecher got more mail at my address. When I emailed Stephen Polich and asked him to step aside so I could forward the mail, Stephen responded with abuse and taunts. He actually told me not to send the mail, claiming to speak for Beecher. He also told me he would not deliver messages I had for Beecher from people other than myself. Stephen now claims he said no such things, but I still have his original emails on file.
I called Harold Goodwin, Beecher’s brother, and told him about the mail. “I’m not going to do anything about it,” was the response. This was followed by a lecture about Jesus, during which Harold told me that it was wrong for Beecher to be gay.
I called Beecher’s cousin, Donna Cifaldi, who claims to not be homophobic. I had actually met Donna once, and I though we had gotten along well.
I told Donna what was going on. “Can I send the mail to you, so you can send them to him? So he’ll get his mail. So it’ll be over.”
In an email that I still have, Donna refused to forward the mail. She accused me of holding the mail “hostage” as a ploy to get back together with him.
Finally, after a year of this insanity, my friend Joe wrote Beecher a letter and asked for a return call. Neither of us had a number for him. Beecher called him, and Joe told him about the mail.
Joe called me. “That guy is being brainwashed.” Joe said. “He went on and on about things that happened between you years ago. He kept repeating himself over and over. He’s being told that you’re harassing his family.”
It was April, 2007. I had stopped contacting his family nine months earlier. But according to Joe, Beecher thought I was still calling them, because that’s what he was told. Joe described Beecher as being in a “rage.”
“Did he know about the mail?” I asked.
“No,” said Joe. “It was clear that I was the first one to tell him about this.”
Two days later, I got a handwritten note from Beecher, which I still have. After chastising me for “bothering” his family, he wrote, “Yes I do need to get my mail.” Confirmed was what I already knew: none of these bastards were speaking for Beecher. They spoke only for themselves.
There was more evil to come. In late August, 2007, Beecher called and asked if I still had a vase he’d left here. I did. Would I send it to his son Sean?
“I don’t know where Sean lives these days,” I said.
“Send it to my ex-wife’s house. He’ll get it.”
I was happy to comply. Sean and Scott are good kids. They had nothing to do with all the ugliness that had gone on. I sent the vase, and sent a check for the financially strapped Scott.
On October 15, 2007, I got a very sweet thank-you card from Beecher, which I still have. He thanked me for sending his boys these items.
A few days later, I was served with a restraining order, also signed by Beecher — on October 15, 2007. He signed the Order of Protection on the same day he sent that card! What’s wrong with this picture?
On December 3, 2007, I attended a hearing at the Hassayampa Justice Court in Surprise, Arizona, Case #CC2007 2031 68000, Judge Chris Mueller presiding. At the hearing, a confused Beecher fought tears when it was revealed that he did not know that the Order he signed said I was a physical threat to him and his children. The Order was “prepared for him,” he said.
Kathryn Rock sat in the back row of the Court, smirking. Judge Mueller threw the order out. Beecher now says that Judge Mueller is “an asshole” who refused to listen to him.
All these lies, all this hate, was instigated by straight conservatives to destroy a gay relationship they disapproved of. Beecher’s disabilities, and, to a lesser extent, my milder form of manic depression, were the tools they used to get what they wanted.
Rev. Gerry Brague, pastor of Chalice Christian Church in San Carlos, California, tells me that their actions go against the teachings of Scripture.
If you asked Beecher today what he thought of me, he’d express disgust. “I want nothing to do with David,” he says.
But twice in the last year, Beecher called me around 4:00 a.m. and left me sexually graphic voicemails. He has no memory of doing this, yet I still have both voicemails archived in my phone.
I suspect that these voicemails are Beecher’s true self struggling to get out from beneath the brainwashing. They stand as a disturbing testament to the emotional harm done to him by Kathryn Rock and Stephen Polich.
Rock and Polich don’t care. Neither do Harold and Laura Goodwin or Donna Cifaldi. They all got what they wanted. Beecher, aged 51, still lives with Kathryn Rock and Stephen Polich. He is older than they, yet he lives as though he were one of their children.
This horror story is all true. I have the documents on file to prove it. What happened to me and Beecher, what was deliberately done to us, stands as a stunning example of why we need gay marriage. Marriage equality would offer gay couples legal protections from predators like Rock and Polich.
More importantly, we need to protect the mentally ill in our community, and we’re not doing that.
For me, this matter will end when the actions of Kathryn Rock and Stephen Polich become a national news story. What they did, using another person’s mental illness as a control device, needs to be criminalized.
Gordon B. Hinckley, the president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who led Mormonism through a period of global expansion, died Sunday at his apartment in Salt Lake City. He was 97.
. . .
Mr. Hinckley spent 46 years in the church’s top leadership ranks, nearly 13 of those as its 15th president, and became the its oldest president.
. . .
To Latter-day Saints, the church president is not merely a temporal figure but also an inspired prophet who interprets church teachings for the present day. In his first year in office, Mr. Hinckley issued a proclamation on the family. Besides reaffirming Mormon belief that families live on together after death, it condemned domestic abuse. It also said that gender was a characteristic determined even before birth, and that procreation was reserved only for a man and a woman as husband and wife.
Under Mr. Hinckley, the church endorsed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman and financed political campaigns to support legislation that would ban same-sex marriage in California and Hawaii. …
In what will likely be remembered as one of the most offensive Christmas devotionals ever, LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley used part of his 2003 Christmas address to condemn homosexuals and to remind his audience that “the traditional family is under attack.”
“Sodom and Gomorrah, and the sinful practices observed therein, became examples of that which was evil and abominable in the sight of God,” said the nonagenarian leader. “It was Jehovah, speaking through his prophets, who decried evil and pleaded for righteousness. When there was no repentance, it was his withering hand that destroyed them.”
Rather than speak ill of the dead, we’ll just let the dead speak for himself:
158 Years of Racism in the Mormon Church = Merely “Little Flicks of History”
Mike Wallace: From 1830 to 1978, blacks could not become priests in the Mormon Church. Right?
Gordon B. Hinckley: That’s correct.
Wallace: Why?
Hinckley: Because the leaders of the church at that time interpreted that doctrine that way.
Wallace: Church policy had it that blacks… uh… had the mark of Cain. Brigham Young said, “Cain slew his brother, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin.”
Hinckley: It’s behind us. Look, that’s behind us. Don’t worry about those little flicks of history.
Why Did It Take So Long to Overcome Racism in the Mormon Church?
I like that. “I don’t know.” That’s nice. “Mr. Hand, will I pass this class?” “Gee, Mr. Spicoli, I don’t know.” You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to leave your words right up here for all my classes to enjoy, giving you full credit of course, Mr. Spicoli.
Steve, a devout Mormon, feared God would not accept him if he were gay. The couple met with their bishop who urged Steve to rid himself of his homosexuality by going through conversion therapy, a controversial program intended to eliminate homosexual feelings. Steve felt he had no choice.
“I wanted to be accepted by God,” he said. “I wanted to be loved. That was everything to me. And so I saw no other route.”
So every week Steve joined other Mormon men for group therapy. Most conversion therapy involves different forms of behavior modification, attempting to make people straight by having them act straight. Some programs even teach men about stereotypically “male” activities, such as talking about football and changing motor oil. Steve did not find that his experience with conversion therapy was at all therapeutic.
“I would definitely call it brainwashing,” he said. “It was an exercise in humiliation.”
Channeling Groucho: Whatever It Is, If It’s Gay, I’m Against It.
Larry King: …As the mores have changed— for example, I know the church is opposed to gay marriage. Do you have an alternative — do you like the idea of civil unions?
Gordon B. Hinckley: Well… We are not anti-gay. We are pro-family, let me put it that way. And we… love these people and try to work with them and help them. We know they have a problem. We want to help them solve that problem.
King: The problem they caused or they were born with?
Hinckley: I don’t know. I’m not an expert on these things. I don’t preted to be an expert on these things. The fact is, they have a problem.
King: Do you favor some sort of state union?
Hinckley: Well, we want to be very careful about that… because that— whatever may lead to gay marriage, we’re not in favor of. We…Many people don’t get married. Goodness sakes alive, you know that. We have many people who have to discipline themselves. If they transgress, they become subject to the discipline of the church. But we try in every way that we know how to help them, to assist them, to bless their lives.
And How, Exactly, Does the Mormon Church “Help” Gay People Get Over Their “Problem”?
This is how:
And then there’s Stuart Matis. And countless other Stuarts.
That’s enough, we think, to give the heretofore-uninformed an introduction to Gordon B. Hinckley.
A post on a mydd.com blog was re-posted on another message board (which, because I genuinely like the board admin and don’t want to embarrass him any more than he’s already been by the mere presence of said post, shall remain nameless), under the subject line:
“This is what the Obama ‘movement’ is all about…”
Here’s the original post:
THE BAM”… PASS IT ON AT THE NEXT OBAMA RALLY!
Having caught “Obama fever” like so many others rallying in support of Barack, I experienced something at a Barack Obama Rally on Thursday, January 10 at the College of Charleston here in Charleston, South Carolina, which I felt was both inspirational and spontaneous!
As Barack worked the line following the close of his speech, there was a surge of people moving forward hoping to get close enough to shake Barack’s hand. Since I was standing about 20 feet back from center stage in the crowd, I felt the crowd down front tighten as many of us stood on our toes, stretched our bodies forward while reaching out to Barack. I noticed that a six foot tall guy who was standing in front of me had stretched far enough above the crowd and shook hands with Barack. As the guy drew back his hand I asked him, “You shook his hand didn’t you?” Happily the guy said “Yes.” I then said, “give me some of that” and the guy shook my hand with the same hand he had just clasped with Barack’s. A woman friend of mine who was standing next to me saw me shake hands with the guy. I turned to her and said “He [the guy] just shook hands with Barack,” to which she responded…”Hey, give it up.” We then shook hands. She then turned to the person next to her and shook hands. This chain of hand shakes went on for about five or six more persons.
I did not know the tall guy in front of me; he is white, I am black. But at the moment we shook hands, I felt some solidarity with this stranger, consummated by a handshake and signifying some unspoken agreement presumably about Barack Obama and his core message of UNITY!
I call this hand-shake scenario the “BAM” because, descriptively, it takes a bit of Obama’s name and it’s the sound of a collision, of People Coming Together!
My reaction:
If that’s “what the Obama ‘movement’ is all about” — the blind frenzy of a mob clamoring to touch the hem of his garment — then the Obama camp is scaring the absolute crap out of me.
What next? Obama raises the dead? Where does the line start to worship a fragment of The One’s sandal?
“Give me some of that”? Jesus Christ, people, GET A GRIP! Obama is NOT GOD!
“You don’t get it! Why do you hate hope? Why do you hate change? Let Obama change your life…!
Holy crap. Ho. Lee. Crap.
Oh, yes, I “get it” — which is precisely why it scares me. The writer sounds like every “est” convert I ever knew in the 1970s. And I remember People’s Temple, and Heaven’s Gate, and Waco, much too well not to be shaken to the bone by this blind madness over Obama.
This is beyond 1960s-era teenyboppers spending a precious five dollars on a one-inch square of bedsheet that one of the Beatles supposedly slept on. This is the guy in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert wearing a vial containing the holy relic of an ABBA turd. Neither Anni-Frid nor Agnetha — nor Obama — is the Second Coming of Christ!
To the writer, and especially to the rest of the adoring throngs blinded into a froth:
How do you expect the rest of us “non-believers” to take you — or your candidate — even half-seriously when all you can offer is this kind of cult worship I thought died out with the 1970s?
And people think Kucinich is nuts for admitting to seeing a UFO? This craziness dwarfs any UFO talk — by light years.
And: Do you have any clue whatsoever as to the fodder you’re providing far-right sites that exist solely for the opportunity to point out how wacko Democrats are? Do you even care how embarrassing posts like that are? I don’t know if such lunacy makes me more ashamed to be associated with the message board to which the message was cross-posted, or with the entire party.
Thank God I’m as dissociated from Obama and his apostles as I ever can be!
Obama’s speech in South Carolina Friday — with commentary by a lesbian reacting to each line as it comes.
A Challenge for Our Time
What you mean “our,” Kemo Sabe?
It’s a special honor to be here in Clarendon County. Because Clarendon County is the place that showed me and showed America that when ordinary people come together, they can do extraordinary things. That’s the Clarendon County I know. I know how sixty years ago, the NAACP’s James Hinton dared to ask why white children could ride buses to school but black children had to walk.
Now, when do the gay children get to ride the bus — instead of being thrown under it?
I know how Reverend J.A. DeLaine, a preacher and teacher in Summerton, heard that call and joined with Levi Pearson, a father who was sick and tired of seeing his children walk nine miles to school, and with Harry and Eliza Briggs and more than a dozen other Black parents to challenge unequal education.
George Wallace blocked the doors in 1963. Can we talk about the inequality of civil unions now?
I know that because of that challenge, Harry Briggs lost his job at the local service station, Eliza Briggs lost hers at a local hotel, and Reverend DeLaine’s home was burned to the ground while the fire department stood by and watched.
It would have been easy for them to stay home. To heed the voices of caution and convenience that said, “wait,” “the timing isn’t right,” or “the country just isn’t ready.” It would have been easy for them to give in to the fears that no doubt kept them awake some nights.
… “wait,” … “the timing isn’t right” … “the country just isn’t ready” … Gosh, where have we heard that before?
But I know that because they were willing to overcome their fears and reach for a larger dream, the Supreme Court overturned “separate but equal,” and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
Yet “separate but equal” is still OK when it comes to queers, right?
And I know that I stand on their shoulders…
As you stand on the heads of the LGBT Americans.
…that their courage and sacrifice six decades ago makes it possible for me to run today for President of the United States.
. . .
I know South Carolina has the worst high school dropout rate in America. I know that all across this nation, one out of every four children go to schools just like J. V. Martin, and take away the same message that we don’t care enough about their education to do better by them.
Well, I’m getting the message that you don’t care enough about LGBT Americans to do anything for us, other than maintain the status quo.
I know that America today is still blind to the poverty in our midst, and that we still tolerate Jena justice for some and Scooter Libby justice for others.
Just like “we” tolerate privilege for heterosexuals, and sloppy seconds for queers.
I know that Black parents in Clarendon are still having to go to court to give their children an equal education – fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education.
I guess we have to wait another ten years before we can say: “And same-sex couples are still having to go to court to demand equal rights fifty years after Loving v. Virginia.”
There is another side of Clarendon County, another side of America, still waiting for what Harry and Eliza Briggs hoped and struggled for. The hope that our children’s destinies aren’t written before they are born.
Our children’s destinies are written before they are born; if they turn out straight, everything’s ducky. But if they turn out gay, bi, or transgendered… not so much. But then, you don’t really believe it’s inborn, do you, Barry?
The hope that one day the world as it is and the world as it should be might be one and the same.
That is why I stand before you today as a candidate for President of the United States of America. I am running because I refuse to accept that the way it is, is the way it has to be. I refuse to accept it when I hear adults say things like “these kids can’t learn” or “these kids come from tough backgrounds” or “these kids are too far behind.” We need to start treating “these kids” like “our kids.”
How about treating LGBT people as if they were Good As You?
We know why this matters. It’s not just that a good education is essential to helping the children of today compete more effectively as the workers of tomorrow. It’s that the promise of a good education makes it possible for every child to transcend the barriers of race and class and background and achieve their God-given potential.
You don’t have to tell us how hard it is to transcend the barriers of bigotry. And stop bringing God into it.
That’s why Harry and Eliza Briggs put their names on that lawsuit. That’s why so many others risked so much to give their children an equal education. That’s my story. That’s what the American story is supposed to be about.
So glad your story has a happy ending. Ours has not.
. . .
Now, I’ve heard that some folks aren’t sure America is ready for an African-American president…
I’m ready for an African-American president. The problem is, he or she has to be the right president, not the right African-American president.
…so let me be clear: I never would have begun this campaign if I weren’t confident I could win.
Imagine a President who was raised like I was by a single mom who had to work and go to school and raise her kids and accept food stamps for a while.
I don’t have to imagine such a president — we had exactly that in Bill Clinton.
. . .
Imagine a President who fought each day to narrow the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be.
Yeah, imagine. Too bad I can’t imagine you being that president.
. . .
So today, sixty years after James Hinton issued his challenge, I want to issue a challenge of my own. If you’re tired of the politics of fear and division…
To which you have contributed, categorically.
…if you’re tired of a government that stands idly by while our schools go underfunded…
Are you promising to end this faith-basedschool-voucher business, which is only helping to gut the public school system? Unless that’s what you’re swearing to do, there’s not much you can say to someone in a state where voters consistently support nearly every school bond measure on the ballot (83% of all measures submitted between 2001 and 2006, if you’re interested).
…our children go unemployed…
Our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered citizens can be fired from their jobs in 37 states just for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered… and/or — even if the “new and improved” ENDA passes — just for being perceived as “lesbians and gay men” — and heteros — “who may not conform to their employer’s idea of how a man or woman should look and act.”
…and our communities are neglected…
And our young people are thrown out of their homes…
A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
It would be easier to overlook Barack Obama’s latest throws-the-gays-under-the-bus gaffe, were it not a continuation of a disturbing pattern of behavior that leads us to only one conclusion:
When it comes to the company he keeps, Barack Obama is no judge of character.
The issue of the week is, of course, Obama’s decision to host a fundraising “gospel concert tour.” That Obama is a Christian is not the point; the point is that he is aligning himself with (and thereby implying endorsement of) one of the most rabidly homophobic “ex-gays” in the nation, one Donnie McClurkin.
If this were an isolated incident, we might let it pass. But this is just the latest in a long series of bad decisions Obama has made, demonstrating a jarring lack of prudence when it comes to his choice of supporters and “friends,” and a complete absence of forethought for the repercussions of his alliances, as well as the questionable ways in which he raises campaign funds.
This is going to get long — very long — so it will be posted in multiple parts. Part 1 will focus on Obama’s latest blunder, his “gospel concert tour.” In subsequent installments, we’ll talk about his alliances with other anti-gay (and anti-woman, and anti-environment) right-wingers, his increasingly frequent interjection of his own fundamentalist religiosity into the political arena, and his contradictory rhetoric.
Let’s begin with the question:
Who is Donnie McClurkin, and why is his appearance at an Obama fundraiser such a bad thing?
Donnie McClurkin is a Grammy Award-winning gospel singer and senior pastor at the Perfecting Church, a nondenominational fundamentalist church (the sort that believes in the complete inerrancy of the Bible) founded by gospel-singing family patriarch Marvin L. Winans.
He is also militantly anti-gay.
He’s also gay.
Or at least he says he was. McClurkin will tell you he’s been “cured” of his homosexuality (and his leukemia) by the “grace of God,” and he’ll tell you that you, too, can, and must, be “cured.”
Gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, who has detailed his struggle with gay tendencies and vowed to battle “the curse of homosexuality,” said yesterday he’ll perform as scheduled at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, despite controversy over his view that sexuality can be changed by religious intervention.
(Oh, did we forget to mention his performance at the RNC? And that McClurkin is a devoted Bush supporter?)
“I can’t let off. I didn’t call myself — God called me to do what I do,” McClurkin told The Post’s Hamil R. Harris. The Grammy winner declared, “If this is a war, we are willing to fight. Not a war of violence, but a war of purpose.”
McClurkin wrote on a Christian Web site in 2002 that he struggled with homosexuality after he was molested by male relatives when he was 8 and 13.
And there you have it: a self-loathing homophobe who blames his gayness on childhood sexual abuse. Is it any wonder so many people believe the myth that homosexuality is the result of a “bad experience” with…
Oops, wait a minute, we can’t remember: Is homosexuality supposed to be caused by sexual abuse by a member of the same sex? Or a negative experience with a member of the opposite sex? There are so many fallacies about the “cause” of homosexuality, we can’t remember what the most popular one is at the moment.
In any case, McClurkin’s “reasoning” is nonsense: It sounds like he’s saying that childhood molestation made him gay — in which case, he must be saying that he liked what happened to him (which no abuse survivor does).
I don’t know if Donnie McClurkin is homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual or asexual. Quite honestly, I don’t care. But I do know that his experience is not the same as everyone else’s. I’ve met thousands of gay men and lesbians across the country, and very few of them were raped or abused as children. Even fewer would say they “chose” their sexual orientation. Why would anyone choose to be a victim of discrimination?
And if rape — by either sex — had any impact on a person’s natural sexual orientation, then every woman who had ever been raped would be a lesbian.
Or would every lesbian who had been raped now be straight? Again, it’s hard to keep up with the fallacious “reasoning” of homophobes.
Millions of women are raped by men but don’t go around calling heterosexuality a “curse” or try to “eradicate” it. They don’t try to harm straight men just because straight men harmed them.
Too, McClurkin has, as many eagerly and deliberately do, confused homosexuality with pedophilia. Contrary to what the gay-bashers would like you to believe, they are not one and the same — nor does one produce the other.
But just try telling that to McClurkin, who, when not blaming gays for his gayness, projects his own “activist” hatred onto other gays in order to prop up his pitiable victim status, which he seems to relish — a lot. From the WaPo article:
McClurkin, who said he’s sung for Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, blamed “the hatred of a few activists, not the gay community,” for the flap. “They act as if my singing on the ticket is the same as singing at a Nazi rally endorsing Nazism.”
We wouldn’t say he was endorsing Nazism, but he certainly does endorse a specific brand of hatred that is intrinsically more damaging, like a slow-growing cancer: the introduction and cultivation in others the self-hatred he himself has not yet overcome, and is not even capable of recognizing, let alone understanding and resolving.
Wrote Boykin:
I’ve seen it time and time again. People who once abused drugs, alcohol, sex, and other people suddenly find themselves changed and start preaching about “sin” to others.
. . .
I suspect the same mentality … may have shaped Donnie McClurkin’s views on homosexuality.
That’s the primary weapon of “ex-gays” and the rest of the most radical religionists: the installation of guilt and self-hatred in others that they themselves cannot shake. If they can make you feel bad about yourself, they won’t feel so bad about themselves.
The methods they use are the very same as those used by cults — and military boot camps, for that matter: They break you down into nothing, and then rebuild you, re-mold you, re-program you, from scratch, into their image (not God’s) of what they want you to be — and what they themselves have often failed to become.
The problem is, any relief the self-haters may feel is temporary. The only way they can find true peace is through self-acceptance — something few ever do; if all the most zealous homophobes could come to terms with their own insecurities about their sexuality (or their masculinity, or femininity), their self-acceptance would lead to acceptance of others — and then you’d never hear any more nonsense about “ex-gay” conversion programs.
McClurkin is a supremely tragic example of the way we human beings hate most the things in others that we hate about ourselves. And to project your own self-hatred onto others while trying to convince yourself that this is some twisted means of “salvation” is as immoral as, and far more insidious than, the straightforward hatred of any neo-Nazi. Let’s face it: At least white supremacists and gay-bashers are more honest — and while a lynching, or a cross-burning, or a gay-bashing is meant to instill terror within the entire community to which the victim belongs, its primary, immediate purpose is to kill or maim; it’s not part of a campaign carefully and deliberately crafted to instill lifelong self-hatred in the target.
Anyone can end your life in an instant by throwing you into a gas chamber or hanging you from a tree — but only self-hatred can make you self-destruct. Why do you think the rate of suicide, and attempted suicide, among gay teenagers is off the scale compared to the rate among heterosexual youths? According to studies by the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and various other agencies tracking this tragic phenomenon for nearly twenty years, up to 35% of all gay and lesbian teenagers attempt suicide — and while gay people make up only 4% to 10% of the general population, “successful” suicides by gay teenagers may comprise as much as 30% of all teen suicides.
Why do you think they do it?
Boykin again:
[McClurkin’s] advice that young people can overcome homosexuality only confuses them about the reality of sexual orientation. No reputable scientific study has ever demonstrated that homosexuality is a choice or that it can be “overcome.”
Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is a sexual orientation. People don’t choose their sexual orientations. They are who they are. …
What makes Donnie McClurkin’s story so troubling is that he is now violating young people in much the same way that he was violated.
Rape is horrible enough already. Raping a child is even more disturbing. But to teach a child that homosexuality is a “lifestyle” choice that is not “normal” is to rape that child of his right to be himself. Bombarded by anti-gay messages that revile them, gay teenagers are already more likely to be abused in school or to attempt suicide than their straight counterparts. Do they really need to have their pastors berating them too?
Donnie McClurkin, of all people, should know better. He suffered for nearly 20 years because society told him there was something wrong with him for his homosexual desires. And he believed it. Now, rather than teaching young people to love themselves for who they are, McClurkin teaches them that they are sinful and evil if they are gay.
Instead of clouding their minds with prejudicial notions of masculinity, we need to teach young men that manhood and sexual orientation are not connected. What makes a man is not his domain over women but rather his sense of maturity and values.
I once read a statement that explains manhood quite well. I like the definition because I think it applies to men and women. It’s really about adulthood and responsibility: “Honesty with oneself, fairness toward others, sensitivity to duty, and courage in its performance. On these qualities rest manhood, and on manhood rests the structure of society.”
One last word (for the time being) from Boykin:
Choosing to accept one’s self without fear or shame is not the same as choosing one’s sexual orientation. Choosing to act a certain way after accepting one’s sexual orientation is not the same as choosing the orientation either.
But far too many so-called Christians don’t want to listen or learn. They would rather parrot the rhetoric of their preachers than bother to think for themselves.
Since fundamenatlists like McClurkin aren’t going to listen or learn anytime soon, we’re always going to have Donnie McClurkins in the world, trying in vain to deny their natural dispositions, transferring their own self-destructive guilt onto others, and, in the process, destroying lives rather than “lifting them up.”
So that’s what’s wrong with Donnie McClurkin. Which leads us, finally, to the real question — which is not a question at all, but a statement:
What’s the matter with Barack Obama.
The immediate problem with Barack Obama is that he has chosen to host a three-day “gospel tour” starring McClurkin.
But while Donnie McClurkin is the anti-gay zealot you’re hearing about most, he’s hardly the only anti-gay zealot on the bill.
“Embrace the Change! Gospel Concert Series” blares barackobama.com:
Senator Barack Obama is committed to brining [sic] people of all faiths together to put their faith into action to change this country for the better.
With the help of many talented, spirit-filled supporters, Barack Obama’s campaign is hosting Gospel concerts throughout Palmetto State on October 26, 27, and 28 to bring South Carolinians together for a few evenings of song and praise.
Tickets are just $10 and support Barack’s historic, grassroots campaign for the Presidency.
Among the other “talented, spirit-filled supporters” slated to appear are gospel duo Mary Mary, a.k.a. Erica and Tina Atkins. In a 2006 interview with Clay Cane, the pair makes their homophobia crystal clear, likening gay people to murderers and prostitutes:
Clay: I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but you have an extremely large gay following — how do you feel about homosexuality and having a massive gay following?
Erica: We are aware. Ummm… how do I feel about homosexuality? I feel how God feels about it, but I still love them. I don’t agree with the lifestyle, but I love them. They can come to the concert; I’m going to hug them just like I hug everybody else. They have issues and need someone to encourage them like everybody else — just like the murderer, just like the one full of pride, just like the prostitute — everybody needs God. What your struggle is may not be what my struggle is, but we all need Him. So, that’s what our music is about giving and God, not to condone the lifestyle or to say, Oh it’s okay, but not to bash — but just to give them God. I mean, I’m appreciative of all of our supporters and fans. Hopefully what their hearing in our music is my love for God.
Tina: You know, I think the fact that our music is very upbeat and works well in clubs — you know, I think that’s something that makes more people gravitate to it. Like Erica said, we don’t necessarily agree with the lifestyle, but we don’t pride ourselves on bashing. Everyone has things in their life that they need to correct, everybody has struggles, everybody has things that, maybe I should’ve done it this way, maybe I should’ve made this choice, you know, or whatever. Even though that’s the way we feel, we don’t bash, we don’t do that kind of thing and we embrace everybody who enjoys our music. Hopefully our music is impacting them in a way that if they see there’s some things in their life that’s not quite right and doesn’t align themselves with what the Bible says — hopefully our music impacts them in a way that makes them want to change it.
Cane’s reaction was much the same as ours:
[What] they probably don’t realize is in a sense they are “bashing” by saying, “Hopefully our music inspires people to change.” What many of the straights don’t realize (as I’ve said several times) homophobia in the black church is a massive reason why HIV/AIDS rates have skyrocketed in the black community as the “peanut congregation” sits idly. They feel the way God feels? Murderers? Prostitutes? They are basically minstering conversion — I can only imagine the young LGBT people who are grappling with sexuality that Mary Mary will damage as they give them a “hate the sin love the sinner” hug.
Is Mary Mary saying, “You are going to hell, but you can still buy our records!” Regardless, not every gospel artist is antigay – like Shirley Caesar for example. Not all Christians are antigay… Being black and Christian does not automatically equate you are antigay, or anti anything else. … However, please don’t tell me they [Mary Mary] are not “antigay” – comparing homosexuality to prostitutes and murders is not pro-gay, or even neutral!
A few days after posting this interview, and after taking flak from readers who accused him of twisting the Atkinses’ words, Cane added:
Lest you think we’re picking on black churches as bastions of homophobia and hotbeds of homosexuality (of the down-low variety), we didn’t just make this stuff up; so far, every quote we’ve pulled about the problem has come from African-American writers, both gay and straight, who speak from experience. It appears that the only people who have been talking about the problem consistently, all along, are African-Americans.
Even Donnie McClurkin alluded to the rampant down-low phenomenon in black churches, in a 2005 interview:
“Well, like I said, there was a big 20-year gap of sexual ambiguity where after the rape my desires were toward men, and I had to fight those things because I knew that it wasn’t what we were taught in church was right. And the older I got, the more that became a problem, because those were the first two sexual relationships that I had. Eight years old and 13 years old. So that’s what I was molded into. And I fought that. When I tell you from eight to 28, that was my fight — in the church. And you were in an environment where there were hidden, you know, vultures I call them, that are hidden behind frocks and behind collars and behind — you know, reverends and the deacons, and it becomes a preying ground, a place where the prey is hunted, and that was what it was like.”
“McClurkin basically describes a world in which homosexuality is common in the church community. Something we have been trying to point out from day one in our campaign. The black church is the most homophobic and the most homotolerant institution in the black community.”
“I did not and have never twisted words around in anu interview. I quoted them word for word — even down to the ‘Ummmm… you know,’ etc. What was posted is exactly what Mary Mary said and people can take it however they would like to…
“They could’ve said, ‘We are all children of God’, ‘I don’t judge’, or so much more that managers and agents prep their talent to say in interviews. Mary Mary decided to voice their beliefs in the interview – like no gospel artist has done in years because it is well know how many gay people are in the gospel music industry. In addition, like someone said in the comments, if you believe I ’set them up’ there must be something you feel Mary Mary said that was wrong or offensive. In order to be ’set up’ you have to be caught saying or doing wrong.”
Also onboard for Obama’s Homophobe Gospel Tour: Hezekiah Walker, gospel singer and virulently anti-gay pastor of Brooklyn megachurch Love Fellowship Tabernacle, rumored to be “a reported homosexual.” The rumor turned out to be false (which, considering the fuel being in the closet provides for much homophobia on the far right, surprises us more than the rumor did) — but did provoke some thoughts from “Hip-Hop Intellectual” Marc Lamont Hill on homophobia in black churches:
Personally, I have no problem (politically or theologically) with Walker or any other minister being gay. If this story is true, my major beef (in addition to the infidelity) is that he has been so disturbingly and publicly anti-gay. Why do so many Black church leaders, like the ones who protested Coretta Scott King’s funeral, obsess about attacking gays and lesbians in the public sphere at the expense of other issues, such as health care, employment, and police terrorism? Rumors like these, as well as the story of “recovering homosexual” Donnie McClurkin (he admits this in his book, Eternal Victim/Eternal Victor, where he says that gay and lesbian identities come from a traumatic or abusive experience), suggest that the anti-gay venom that often comes from prominent Black Church leaders is a cover for their own personal struggles.
Which leads us to mention why Obama is doing this tour, and where he’s doing it; as the New York Times reminds us, this “gospel tour” comes on the heels of the Family Research Council’s “Values Voters Summit” (”a straw poll of mostly Christian conservative voters … held this weekend in the nation’s capital”):
All three of the dates of the “Embrace the Change” tour are in South Carolina, where Mr. Obama is locked in battle with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for black voters.
In other words, Obama is desperate to wrest the black vote from Hillary, even if it means cozying up to the most radical of the Radical Religious Right.
The study is the first to explore the link between victimization and suicidal behavior among college students. In the course of the study, University of Washington researcher Heather Murphy also uncovered a group of students who previously had not been studied and are at increased risk for suicidal behavior. These students identified themselves as heterosexual, but also reported being attracted to people of the same sex or engaging in same-sex behavior.
This group was three times as likely as heterosexuals to have made a plan to commit suicide in the past year and six times more likely to have actually attempted suicide in the same period. Gay, lesbian and bisexual students also were at increased risk for suicidal behavior. They were twice as likely as heterosexuals to have planned and to have attempted suicide in the previous year.
. . .
Verbal victimization included homophobic statements, hearing others talk about gays, lesbian and bisexuals in derogatory terms, and being harassed for their sexual orientation. Physical victimization included being physically threatened or assaulted and getting into fights. Murphy said victimization for some students was “pervasive” on campus while others didn’t want to go off campus because they feared being harassed or would only visit areas of Seattle popular with gays in groups.
. . .
She said the high suicidal-behavior rate among the same-sex attracted heterosexuals was a surprise, primarily because researchers previously had not looked at them as a separate group. “I was shocked by the finding because the rate for these students was just off the charts,” Murphy said.
. . .
The second possibility is that many bisexuals make this identification later in their 20s when they come out, and at 19, the mean age of the students in the study, many students may not yet be at the point of coming out, said Murphy.
The Trevor Project Announces Launch of ‘Don’t Erase Your Queer Future’ Campaign in Conjunction With National Suicide Prevention Week
The Trevor Project (Trevor), the non-profit organization that operates the nation’s only around-the-clock suicide prevention helpline for gay and questioning youth, today announced the launch of “Don’t Erase Your Queer Future”, a new online social marketing campaign designed to expand and broaden the resources available to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth vulnerable to emotional distress and suicide. The overall goal of the campaign is to prevent suicide by promoting a culture that honors gay and lesbian achievement while encouraging queer youth to seek support when needed. The organization has launched a new website (http://www.donteraseyourqueerfuture.org/) as the focal point of the campaign, the launch for which is timed to coincide with National Suicide Prevention Week (September 9-15, 2007).
Specifically, the campaign uses quotations from, and portraits of, prominent gay men and lesbians from the past such as Oscar Wilde, Susan B. Anthony, Walt Whitman, Josephine Baker and Bayard Rustin, and asks viewers to ponder the terrible impact if these gifted individuals had committed suicide. Quotations from these individuals are written on a chalkboard and then slowly erased, pointing out that, if these extraordinarily talented people had committed suicide, all of their successes and the invaluable contributions they made to the arts, culture and society, would have been lost. The campaign also includes information about the personal and often largely unknown struggles these individuals overcame during their lifetimes.
“We are excited to launch this new campaign, a major component of our strategy to significantly increase the awareness of gay teenage suicide and the lifesaving services that Trevor provides to combat this crisis,” said Charles Robbins, executive director of The Trevor Project. “It is still largely unknown that suicide is one of the top three killers of 15 to 24 year-olds and, tragically, that gay teenagers are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. Moreover, for every completed suicide by young people, it is estimated that 100 to 200 attempts are made. It is our sincere hope that this new campaign and website, in conjunction with our free and confidential helpline and the other resources we provide, will enable Trevor to reach and save even more young lives.”
The campaign, which is funded by the organization’s leading donors, known as The Circle of Hope, will have other components in addition to the new website. In particular, the campaign will include banner advertisements placed on prominent social networking sites. The banners will take the user to the new website and, from there, he or she will be encouraged to visit the Trevor homepage or, if the individual is in crisis, to call The Trevor Helpline (1.866.4U.TREVOR). The campaign was created for The Trevor Project by Better World Advertising.
About The Trevor Project
The Trevor Project is a non-profit organization that operates the only nationwide, around-the-clock suicide prevention helpline for gay and questioning youth. The Trevor Helpline, 866.4.U.TREVOR, is a free and confidential service that offers hope through its trained counselors. In addition to the helpline, the organization’s website provides information on identifying and assisting potentially suicidal youth and “Dear Trevor”, a confidential resource where youth can ask questions of Trevor’s trained clinicians. The Trevor Project also provides lifesaving guidance and vital resources to parents and to educators, such as The Trevor Workshop Guide, a classroom tool to be used in conjunction with viewings of the short film Trevor to constructively generate discussion about the myriad of issues surrounding suicide, personal identity and sexual orientation. The organization was founded by three filmmakers whose film, Trevor, about a teenager who attempts suicide after realizing that he might be gay, received the 1994 Academy Award(R) for Best Short Film (Live Action).
For more information about The Trevor Project, including information on how educators may obtain free copies of The Trevor Workshop Guide, please visit http://www.thetrevorproject.org/. The Trevor Project is a 501 (c)(3) organization.
About Better World Advertising
Better World Advertising (BWA) is a leading social marketing firm with offices in California and New York. BWA has been creating impactful, award winning campaigns for advocacy groups, universities and government agencies since 1996. More information about BWA can be found at http://www.socialmarketing.com/.
