On Barack Obama’s latest attempt to appeal to “all” people, and militant liberal gay groups

Poor Barack Obama. Once viewed as the man to beat, his rookie mistakes and inexperience have, in part, led to his poll numbers consistently staying way behind frontrunner Hillary Clinton for the last several months.

And it’s only getting worse for the presidential wannabe. This is what happens when you try to please too many people at the same time:

WASHINGTON – In response to an uproar from gay activists, Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential campaign on Thursday added a gay minister to the lineup for its weekend gospel tour.

Gay activists had criticized Obama’s “Embrace the Change” tour in South Carolina because the performers included gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, who says homosexuality is a choice.

Obama’s campaign invited Rev. Andy Sidden, a South Carolina pastor who is openly gay, to appear on Sunday in Columbia. Obama discussed Sidden’s inclusion Thursday with Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, which supports gay rights.

In a statement, Solmonese said he thanked Obama for including Sidden but told the Illinois senator he was disappointed McClurkin will remain part of the program.

“There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin’s message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies,” Solmonese said. “That’s a message that certainly doesn’t belong on any presidential candidate’s stage.”

Several gay groups and liberal bloggers alike are, unsurprisingly, condemning the Senator, including one black lesbian liberal blogger who isn’t pleased with Obama’s attempts at appeasing the gay community because the openly gay minister he invited is white (emphasis added):

Let’s get straight to it. What the hell were Obama’s people thinking when they invited a white openly gay minister to open for his South Carolina gospel concert with Donnie McClurkin?

I’ll repeat it once more.

I said, what the hell were Obama’s people thinking when they invited a white openly gay minister to open for his South Carolina gospel concert with Donnie McClurkin?

Citizen Crain, a gay blogger who appears to support Obama, calls out Jasmyne Cannick on her blatant double standards:

Let me get this straight: White Americans should entrust a black man with the nation’s highest office, to take responsibility for an enormous range of problems that impac[t] their lives, but African-Americans can’t hear from a white gay minister about anything relating to civil rights. Smell the irony.

Make sure to read it all. You won’t agree with everything he writes, but his basic premise is that the gay community and other ‘outraged’ liberals have lost their collective minds in making this out to be a big scandal.

Some gay groups and black Christians are spinning this as a way to counter homophobia in the black community:

In the midst of division, we hope and believe that this is a moment to bring together communities that have been divided for far too long. A few things are clear.

First, Pastor McClurkin believes and has stated things about sexual orientation that are deeply hurtful and offensive to many Americans, most especially to gay Americans. This cannot and should not be denied. At the same time, a great many African Americans share Pastor McClurkin’s beliefs. This also cannot be ignored.

Finally, we believe that the only way for these two sides to find common ground is to do so together. Not at arms length. Not in a war of words with press and pundits. Only together.

To see this silly little “war” being waged by one “victim” group (liberals in the gay community) against another (the black community) within the Democratic party is somewhat amusing, as we get a chance to see once again how much the Democrat claim of being a “big tent” party is nothing more than a huge lie. Not only are they shunning the Rev. McClurkin’s Biblically correct view of homosexuality, but there are actually complaints from liberals that inviting a white openly gay minister “sends the wrong message.” But what I’d like to address more so than than the hypocrisy and the typical “look at me, I’m a victim” arguments we so routinely see from liberal gay groups in an effort to garner sympathy in hopes that their radical agenda can be further implemented is the argument from HRC about God’s view of homosexuality (emphasis added):

“I spoke with Sen. Barack Obama today and expressed to him our community’s disappointment for his decision to continue to remain associated with Rev. McClurkin, an anti-gay preacher who states the need to Γ’β‚¬Λœbreak the curse of homosexuality.’ There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin’s message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. That’s a message that certainly doesn’t belong on any Presidential candidate’s stage.”

“I did thank him for announcing he would be adding an openly gay minister as part of the tour and for his willingness to call on religious leaders to open a dialogue about homophobia. We hope that Sen. Obama will move forward and facilitate face to face meetings with religious leaders, like Rev. McClurkin, and the GLBT community to confront the issue of homophobia.”

“We also call on all of the Presidential campaigns to look within their ranks of supporters and make the same commitment to engage in a dialogue among differing views around issues of equality and fairness for our community.”

Rev. McClurkin, an “ex-gay” gospel singer and minister who has called homosexuality a “curse”, has repeatedly stated his opposition to homosexuality as being against “the intention of God.”

Usually when I argue against things like gay marriage, I don’t use religious arguments against it for a couple of reasons: 1) because religious arguments against homosexuality (aka “God said so”) can’t (and shouldn’t) be used as a justification for the government to ban gay marriage and 2) because it’s not really necessary, as cogent secular arguments can and have been made against gay marriage. That said, whenever I hear anyone from a liberal gay group try to twist the word of God into one of “tolerance” for sinners (whether they be gay, adulterers, or whatever) the only way to counter those arguments is to remind them that God is not a tolerant God, because if He was, there would be no such thing as sin, no such thing as right and wrong. Things would just “be.” God is, in fact, very intolerant of sin, which is one of the reasons you hear so many preachers talk on Sundays about “judgement day.” There can be no judgement day if nothing is to be judged.

I wrote the following back in August over the flap regarding the church in Texas that cancelled a memorial service for an Iraq war veteran once they found out the family wanted to turn the service into a celebration of the gay lifestyle, and I think it bears repeating now:

Church memorials are not supposed to honor sinful lifestyles, no matter the sin. High Point Church did the right thing here – it showed the compassion and selflessness that is such a huge part of being a Christian. But it wasn’t Γ’β‚¬Λœbigoted’ or Γ’β‚¬Λœhateful’ – their decision was based on Bible teachings, and in a PC age where they had to have known that their decision was going to raise a lot of eyebrows in liberal Christian churches and media outlets looking for an angle, I’d say it was a brave decison to make.

It’s so easy these days to “go along with the crowd” and do “what feels good” – but Christianity isn’t about “going along with the crowd” and doing “what feels good.” It’s about going along and doing what’s right by God, and that’s the most important thing that should be taken from all this.

This doesn’t compute with liberal gay groups because they believe that secular tolerance should also exist in the non-secular world. What they also don’t understand is that no matter how many laws they can change by their militant campaigns in the secular world as it relates to “gay rights” they cannot change the word of God. It is what it is. And it expressly condemns sin, and one of those sins includes homosexuality.

If the HRC, and/or any other liberal gay group believes that homosexuality should be “tolerated” and “accepted” by the church, then they have woefully (and likely deliberately) misinterpreted what the Bible explicitly says about sin. If any of the liberals who are members of these groups are going to a church that “accepts” sin – no matter the sin – then, I’m sorry, they might as well not even be attending church because acceptance and tolerance of sin is an outright rejection of the word of God.

I can see the emails from liberals piling up now: “But ST, why do Christians tend to be so “accepting” of other sins, like adultery, but unaccepting of the “sin” of homosexuality? Conservative Christians are nothing more than hateful hypocrites on this issue!” My answer to that, as it always has been, is that any Christian who is “accepting” of other sins is being no more truthful to the word of God than liberal gay groups who believe that the sin of homosexuality should be “accepted” within the church. It’s just that simple. On the “hateful” part, Cinnamon Stillwell says it best:

But where anti-Christian sentiment does arise in the local gay community, it tends to originate in the perception that Christianity, by adhering to its own orthodoxies, is promoting hatred. But, as I’ve noted previously, disapproval is not synonymous with hatred. The very nature of organized religion is to present human beings with a set of standards by which to live, and this includes taboos. Reform is a necessary part of this process and, indeed, various liberal Christian and Catholic parishes have sprung up around the country. But many gay activists are not content with this state of affairs. It seems that until the Catholic Church bends to their will and, essentially, dispenses with all its traditions, they will not be satisfied.

In the spirit of tolerance so often claimed by such activists, it might behoove them to allow the devout their own beliefs, even where they find them offensive. For it was never written in stone that Americans are to be free of offense, despite what the arbiters of political correctness would have us believe. One is not compelled to like or approve of the lifestyle or actions of another, as long as violence or incitement to violence is not employed in the process. And, again, registering disapproval is not tantamount to promoting violence.

In contrast, it’s the antagonism expressed towards Christians by their critics that often veers dangerously close to hatred. In an earlier column, I noted a T-shirt worn by a salesclerk in a San Francisco gift shop that read, “So many right-wing Christians, so few lions.” One can only imagine the reaction had another group been substituted for Christians. It seems that, for some, anti-Christian bigotry has become the last acceptable prejudice.

Yep, and ironically, it comes from the very types of groups who preach a “tolerance” that in actuality they themselves don’t practice.

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