The most significant factor that keeps the Black church on the down low are closeted, homophobic ministers.
Pastor Donnie McClurkin—a three-time Gospel Grammy winner and the former poster boy for African American ex-gay ministries—is one example. In a recent episode of TV One's Uncensored, McClurkin talked about his sexual past.
"I didn't know really what a woman wanted," McClurkin said. "I've messed up more than I've had good. My past relationships were a sprinkling of everything—men and women."
McClurkin's sexuality has been an open secret. However, now at 61, McClurkin's lamenting about growing old and being alone because of his sexuality. While the Black LGBTQ+ community would applaud someone of McClurkin's status telling the truth about his sexual past, many of us can't pretend to care because of decades of damning and damaging messages he hurled at us.
At the COGIC (Church of God in Christ) 2009 Convocation, McClurkin espoused his ex-gay rhetoric, castigating former talented gospel industry worker Tonex (B. Slade), who unapologetically stated that he "didn't struggle with his sexual attraction to men." According to McClurkin, however, Black males like Tonex are gay because of sexual molestation, an absentee father or a lack of strong male role models. McClurkin attributed his homosexuality to being raped twice as a child—first at age 8 at his brother's funeral by his uncle, and then at age 13 by his cousin, his uncle's son.
"You can't call me a homophobic if I've been a homosexua l…. My thing was from [being] raped. And this started a pathology," McClurkin stated on radio's The Tom Joyner Morning Show in 2013.
Confusing, however, same-gender sexual violence with homosexuality, McClurkin misinterpreted the molestation as the reason for his gay sexual orientation. McClurkin "testi-lies" that his cure was done by deliverance from God and a restoration of his manhood by becoming the biological father of a child.
However, in 2010, Pastor McClurkin's homophobic past came back to haunt him. McClurkin was billed as the main event in the 2010 Boston Gospelfest, and many African American LGBTQ people did not attend the event; neither was the mayor. Every year then-Mayor Tom Menino's Office of Arts, Tourism, and Special Events put on its annual Boston GospelFest at City Hall Plaza. Because the Gospelfest was a public and taxpayer-funded community event, it was open to all—including the African American LGBTQ communities.
"I learned yesterday—through the Phoenix article regarding the City of Boston Gospel Fest— of the depth and breadth of Donnie McClurkin's views on the gay community," Burns emailed me. Julie Burns was then-director of arts, tourism and special events for the mayor's office.
"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."
Menino had the trust and respect among both African American and LGBTQ communities. However, when it came to moving Boston's Black ministers on LGBTQ civil rights, Menino's struggle had been and was like that of other elected officials and queer activists— immovable. His absence from that year's Gospelfest was another example of how Boston's Black ministers—an influential and powerful political voting bloc of the mayor's—would rather compromise their decades-long friendship with City Hall than denounce McClurkin's appearance.
In 2013, McClurkin was scheduled to be one of the singers at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial during the "Reflections on Peace: From Gandhi to King" event. But D.C.'s mayor, responding to LGBTQ activists' outcry of McClurkin's appearance, withdrew the invitation.
On Uncensored, McClurkin didn't come out with a full-throated statement about being gay or bisexual. Instead, he spoke about his sexuality in terms of marriage.
"Honestly, the only thing in my life that is missing is marriage. The only thing that is missing in my life that can cause real family is marriage."
While McClurkin refers to heterosexual weddings, he does, however, know about same-sex marriage because he was an opponent of the marriage equality movement.
In 2021, I am still asking these three questions:
1. Why can't we as an African American community tell the truth about our sexuality?
2. What price do we pay in telling the truth?
3. And what role does the church play in perpetuating not only unsafe sexual behavior but also demonizing its members of the LGBTQ community?
My answer: ministers like McClurkin.
McClurkin admitted he still has sexual urges to be with men but won't act on them. He compares his gay desires to diabetes: "I don't eat sugar, but it doesn't mean that I don't want sugar."
