Every year Mayor Tom Menino's Officeof Arts, Tourism, and Special Events puts on its annual Boston GospelFest at City Hall Plaza.
And because the Gospelfest is a public and taxpayer-funded community event, it’s open to all -- even its African American lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities.
But with Pastor Donnie McClurkin, the poster boy for African American ex-gay ministries, who spews anti-gay religion-based vitriol, billed as the main event, many in the African American lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) communities will not be in attendance at this year’s event. And neither will the mayor.
Menino ranks among the most pro-LGBTQ mayors across the country. He refused to participate in Boston’s St. Patrick's Day parade when organizers barred an LGBTQ group from marching. And he was always an advocate for equal marriage. Menino has thrown his weight around and has used his power on behalf of LGBTQ civil rights, and have succeeded in doing so.
However, when it comes to moving Boston’s black ministers on LGBTQ civil rights, Menino’s struggle has been and is like that of other elected officials and queer activists - immovable. And, sadly many of Boston’s black ministers are in lock step with black homophobic ministers across the country.
Menino’s absence from this year’s Gospelfest is another sad example of how Boston’s black ministers, an influential and powerful political voting bloc of the mayor’s, would rather compromise its decade-long friendship with City Hall than denounce McClurkin’s appearance.
And while Boston’s black ministers’ support of McClurkin's appearance put the mayor between a rock and a hard place with its LGBTQ and African American communities, it also puts Menino in a difficult spot with his African American LGBTQ communities.
And, it is Greater Boston’s African American LGBTQ communities that will feel denounced at this year’s Gospelfest, wishing the mayor’s office had contacted someone from our community in their vetting of McClurkin.
For many in the African American LGBTQ communities, we, too, along with our heterosexual Christian brothers and sisters, excitedly await Boston’s annual Gospelfest.
Gospelfest brings together huge gatherings of black church-going Christians across Greater Boston and across denominational affiliations in fellowship with one another.
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While for many African American heterosexual Christians, Gospelfest is a second worship service for them that day because it’s always held on a Sunday, for many African American LGBTQ Christians, Gospelfest is our only worship service for the year.
With too few African American open and welcoming churches in Greater Boston, Gospelfest affords many of us in our black LGBTQ communities a sweet moment-- as unabashedly Christians and unapologetically queers -- in corporate worship and celebration with our faith communities in an inclusive and public space.
“God did not call you to such perversions. Your only hope is Jesus Christ. Were it not for this Jesus I would be a homosexual today. This God is a deliverer,” is just an example of the continual flow of McClurkin ‘s homophobic remarks stated at the Church of God in Christ’s (COGIC) 102nd Holy Convocation International Youth Department Worship Service in November 2009.
Ms. Julie Burns, the Director of Arts, Tourism & Special Events for the Mayor’s Office came late to knowing about McClurkin's anti-gay rhetoric. When Burns called me on June 24th about the McClurkin kerfuffle with the Gospelfest just weeks away she was apologetic.
“I learned yesterday -- through the Phoenix article regarding the City of Boston Gospel Fest -- of the depth and breath of Donnie McClurkin's views on the Gay community. I am embarrassed to say that I was not aware of this and we obviously should have vetted him further. Gospel Fest is in its 10th year and is arguably the largest Gospel event in New England. Minister McClurkin was recommended to us by a number of people and we were swayed by his artistic honors. Of course, this does not excuse the situation that we now find ourselves in! Please rest assured that Mayor Menino did not know anything about this and would never condone ‘hate speech’ of any kind, “ Burns wrote in an email to me.
In asking for my help I supplied Burns with a list of 10 top-tier singers of Rev. Donnie McClurkin's caliber. In an e-mail to Burns I wrote, "there is no top singing African American gospel singer who’s publicly an ally to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities. While many of the singers are LGBTQ -- because black gospel music is the expression of a ‘black gay male gospel aesthetic’ -- very few are as public about their denunciation of the LGBTQ community as “ex-gay” Rev. Donnie McClurkin."
Although many of us African American LGBTQ will not be in attendance at this year’s Gospelfest on July 18th, the crowd will be, nonetheless, shouting to a black gay male gospel aesthetic, because McClurkin will be there.
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