Eddie Long Can Repent By Apologizing for Gay Bashing

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Embattled mega church preacher Bishop Eddie Long came as close to confessing his sexual debauchery as any debaucher could come without actually confessing. He cryptically told his singing, shouting, handclapping flock that he wasn’t a perfect man, and that he would face some painful situations. This was a good step forward for Long. He didn’t do the usual soft shoe, duck and dodge around the issue. Or worse, defiantly claim that he was being persecuted for being a pure and righteous man of God. Or even worse still, break out in a teary eyed plea to family and flock for forgiveness.
These are the stock ploys that a bevy of celeb preachers, politicians and a Pope snatch at when caught with their sexual hypocrisy exposed. Long didn’t go there. He simply spun his hypocrisy as that of a man engaged in a thoughtful and reflective soul search. Long now should take one more step in his soul search and apologize for his greatest sin. That’s his near decade long, relentless, gay bash. Long didn’t just do what many conservative fundamentalist black preachers do and quietly twist scripture and verse to make the case that God condemns gays to eternal hell and damnation. He actively led crusades against gay marriage, and by extension gays, railed against them on his websites, in fiery sermons, loudly backed George W. Bush's federal amendment banning gay marriage, and led a slanderous march to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s gravesite to denounce gay marriage. Each new accusation that Long used his youth training academy as a cover to procure kid sex, may ultimately prove him to be not just a hypocrite, but a full blown sexual predator.

Long then should issue a statement, better still do what he does best, and deliver a sermon on tolerance. That’s tolerance toward all those who have a different sexual preference. He should invite the leaders of the nation’s top gay rights organizations to take a front row seat at his church and look them square in the eye, as he preaches his sermon on tolerance. He should then make it plain to his mostly black congregation that he does not want them to mindlessly and blindly shout “Jesus Jesus” and “it’s time to praise him,” and sang hymns such as “white as snow” as they did when he made his kind of sort of admission of guilt from the pulpit. This reinforces the despicable notion that blacks are narrow, bigoted, and brain dead zombies who will give a pass to even the most blatant and outrageous criminal and sexual behavior and exploitation as long as it’s done in the name of Jesus and the offender is black.
Afterwards, Long should announce in tandem with gay organization leaders that New Birth Missionary Baptist Church will set up a new academy dedicated to the principle and practice of tolerance. He took a light step in that direction some time back when at the prodding of Soulforce, a gay Christian advocacy group, he played at having a dialogue on his attitudes toward gays. That didn’t go very far. This time it should.
Long set the standard of bigotry and bias for a new generation of conservative fundamentalist mega black churchmen on gay rights. An apology and outreach won’t undo that. It can though be a step toward his personal repentance. God, I’m sure, would approve.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Bishop Eddie Long: Victim, Hypocrite or Both in Sex Scandal?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

There mega-church black minister Bishop Eddie Long was in January 2004 with the Rev. Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in tow, leading a spirited march of thousands to the Atlanta gravesite of Dr. King. Long and the demonstrators marched to denounce gay marriage. The choice of King’s site to make the hell fire and damnation point that gay marriage was sinful, degenerate, and against every Biblical precept was painful and insulting to see. The not so subtle implication was that King might well have stood with her and them in their gay bashing protest. Given King’s relentless and uncompromising battle against discrimination during his life, this was beyond pure poppycock; it was well, insulting and painful to see.

But even though Long sullied King's name and legacy to torpedo gay rights, the Bishop seemingly was not a hypocrite when it came to denouncing gays. He was one of the biggest, best known, and virulent black evangelical attackers of gay marriage. Long had prominently touted then President George W. Bush's federal amendment banning gay marriage on his church Web site. Long’s anti-gay phobia was so virulent that then NAACP president Julian Bond publicly declared he would not attend the funeral service of Coretta Scott King at Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Why, because as Bond flatly said "I knew her attitude toward gay and lesbian rights. And I just couldn't imagine that she'd want to be in that church with a minister who was a raving homophobe. He obviously couldn’t see himself there either.

For a brief moment, Long seemed to relent some from his sledgehammer bible quoting attacks on gays when he agreed to meet with Soulforce, a gay Christian lobby organization, at his church in 2008. Long’s epiphany went no further than the one meeting and a pithy statement from him that there were “things about homosexuality that he needs to learn”

The question then is the accusations from the lengthening list of teen and young male adults who claim that Long bought and paid for their sexual favors true? They may well be phony as a nine dollar bill, a shakedown, or a dirty put up job to smear a prominent black minister that many blacks regard as a leader and advocate. But even if that turns out to be the case, there’s another more compelling question. Did Long’s long, open and relentless crusade against homosexuals tag he and many other anti-gay prominent black church leaders as narrow, bigoted, and hypocritical in championing the very discrimination that King and the civil rights movement waged a titanic battle against?

A big warning sign that the gay rights issue would inflame, polarize, and even energize blacks within and without the black pulpit came in 1997 when the Green Bay Packers perennial all-pro defensive end Reggie White, an ordained minister, touched off a firestorm of protest from gay groups with a rambling, hour- long talk to the Wisconsin legislature in which he took a huge swipe at gay rights and gay marriage. He later barnstormed through several Mid-Western cities pushing the anti-gay gospel at pro-family rallies.

Before his untimely death in 2005, White apologized for his anti-gay remarks, but he was unrepentant in his view about homosexuality. He was a conservative black minister and homosexuality, as with Long, still violated his biblical conception of the proper roles for men and women. In defying the canons of political correctness, White became the first celebrity black evangelical to say publicly what many black religious leaders said and believed privately. Few blacks joined in the loud chorus that condemned his remarks.

The same year the conservative Virginia based Alliance for Marriage corralled a handful of top black preachers to plop their name on the Alliance’s letterhead and tout the Alliance’s anti-gay rights agenda. The year before White’s outburst, and the Alliance's rope in of black ministers like Long, a Pew Poll measured black attitudes toward gay marriage and found that blacks by an overwhelming margin opposed it. A CNN poll eight years later showed that anti-gay attitudes among blacks had not changed much since then. The substantial backing black voters gave California’s anti-gay marriage measure, Proposition 8 and anti-gay marriage initiatives in other states, was ample proof of that

Gay rights, and especially gay marriage, advocates have had a big uphill battle to convince blacks that tolerance didn’t begin and end with race alone. The Democrats and civil rights groups had no real defense against the anti-gay phobia among black Christian groups and blacks that weren’t of the faith but still loathed gay marriage.

For years Long was a leader of the anti-gay pack. When confronted with the charge of sex pandering, he loudly declares he did nothing wrong, and is willing to confront his accusers to show them to be the liars and con artists they are. Long may just be right. The fact that the charges were leveled at him, a man of the pulpit who turned gay bashing into a growth industry in the pulpit, doesn’t make him a hypocrite. But it doesn’t make him a victim either.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Rethinking Palin

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

It's time to rethink Sarah Palin. From the moment that Republican presidential candidate John McCain plopped her on his ticket, the supreme article of political faith from all pundits, much of the press, most Democrats, and the GOP establishment has been that Sarah Palin is a laughingstock, a sideshow diversion, an ignoramus on the issues, a gossip and celebrity starved media creation, and, of course, a closet race tinged crowd baiter. The Palin allure is built squarely on elements of these features. But what's now painfully obvious, is the allure has turned Palin into a political force, threat, and danger.

The millions of Palin loathers gag at the thought of this. But her string of victories by candidates she endorsed in the primaries, and a flip-flop in some polls that now show more people than not say that she should run, and a more than a few say that she should win, have radically changed the game.
The tough to swallow truth is that she has greater national political name recognition than any other Republican and that includes her former ticket head, McCain. She energizes and rallies conservatives, and polls say more Americans self-identify themselves as conservatives than liberals, let alone progressives. Palin's motherly, family-values, fundamentalist pitch fascinates even those who personally detest her message. This includes much of the Palin obsessed media. Her political ineptness, naiveté smacks of a bumbling political innocence that far from being a liability endears her to throngs. This makes her the hot ticket item she is on the media and lecture circuit. It also now has more GOP candidates and some incumbents begging her and her Tea Party pals to troop through their neck of the woods and say a word of praise on their behalf.

GOP regulars and political pundits still shrug her off as a possible GOP presidential candidate in 2012. And she's still a favored running joke of late night comics. But this has endeared her to many as a scorned mother non-politician. That serves to keep her public stock and appeal high. The Christine O'Donnell and Joe Miller GOP senate primary victories in Delaware and Alaska sent her stock through the ceiling.

Palin exploits another feeling that GOP mainstream politicians have been inept, clumsy, or gun shy about exploiting. And that's race and Obama. During the campaign McCain wisely declared that off-limits. But Palin didn't. She quickly trotted out the GOP's old reliable playbook of racially tinged code words, phrases, and digs at Obama, "paling around with terrorists," and "This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America." Far from turning voter's heads in disgust and revulsion at the word play, they got rousing cheers whenever she spewed them out on the campaign stump.

That sent the signal that there were millions of voters who would never accept an Obama presidency, no matter what he said, or did, and no matter how well he said or did it. They just simply could not stomach the idea of a black man in the White House, and they would go to any lengths to get him out of there. But to make the counter assault on Obama work, it would take a media savvy and manipulative, galvanizing figurehead to rev up the crowds, and a vehicle to organize them once they were revved up. Palin and the Tea Party were the manna from above to try and accomplish that. Even while the much of the press and the pundits continued to bash her harder than any GOP candidate since Hoover Herbert during the presidential campaign, the crowds that wildly cheered her didn't slack up one bit. And neither did the endless refrain from the Palin cheerleaders that she was one of us. And since winning elections is still as much about which candidate can win the hearts not the heads of the voters, Palin was clearly the one who could tug at the voter's heart strings.

The final vote result proved it. Despite the colossal baggage McCain and the GOP carried, and colossal advantages Obama and the Democrats had, the majority of white moderate and conservative voters, and a large segment of young whites and independents still voted for McCain. In the nearly two years since Obama's election, Palin has been the GOP stalking horse to stampede the herd of moderates and conservative independents even further away from Obama.

The Palin success in grabbing headlines, firing up anti-Obama mania, and snapping the heads of the GOP establishment to attention hasn't been lost on Palin. She's adroitly moved her game plan to the next level, and has extended the Olive Branch to the GOP mainstream with saccharine public appeals for the party to make peace and target Democrats for the boot in November. Her party unit pitch is aimed at doing one thing, and that's to bring her in from the fringe cold and establish her as a worthy, even credible, presidential candidate in 2012. So far she's done everything else right, and there's no reason to think that she won't make some headway on this either. This horrific possibility is more than enough cause to rethink Palin.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Farrakhan Endorsement Makes Ground Zero Mosque Backers Squirm

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is the latest to weigh in on the great Ground Zero mosque debate. Predictably, Farrakhan gave fulsome backing to building the mosque at the controversial spot. But Farrakhan took it a step further and just as predictably gave it a racial spin. He said that there are a lot of blacks who are Muslims, and some of them were killed in the 9/11 terror attack. Farrakhan, race, and controversy; the three go hand in hand. That’s always enough to make folk squirm.
In the days building up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the question is how just much will Farrakhan’s public tout of the mosque, make some of the mosque’s fervent backers squirm? Probably not a lot since the battle lines on the mosque are pretty firmly drawn. You’re either for it on religious freedom, tolerance, or constitutional grounds. Or you’re against it on desecration of hallowed soil, insensitivity, or it’s a deliberate provocation grounds.
Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose it for one or all of the reasons cited. The mosque is a religious and political minefield. It was inevitable that Farrakhan would plunge into it. He has that right.
But Farrakhan is instant controversy, and even more instant racial polarization. That was never more evident than during the 2008 presidential campaign. Days after then Democratic presidential contender Obama announced his candidacy, Farrakhan praised and virtually endorsed him in a speech at the Nation of Islam’s annual Savior's Day confab in Chicago. A horrified Team Obama promptly issued this statement: Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister's support." That didn’t satisfy his primary foe Hillary Clinton. She publicly demanded that he forcefully reject Farrakhan's endorsement. Obama did but even then he carefully avoided mentioning Farrakhan by name. It was just too hot. Obama recognized one compelling fact about Farrakhan. He may be a controversial and much vilified figure but he is not a fringe figure within black communities. He is still cheered and admired by thousands of blacks. They are also voters too and most embraced Obama with almost messianic zeal.
Mosque supporters can now count Farrakhan among their ranks. In this mid-term political season that shapes up to be the most hard fought one in decades, the mosque issue is an issue that’s one of the most inflammatory. It pricks, inflames, and punches just about every person’s hot button. It’s almost certain that one or more shrill rightwing websites, bloggers, or radio talk show hacks that froth at building the mosque at the WTC site will throw up Farrakhan’s name as see-I-told-you proof that the mosque is a closet Jihadist conspiracy against the US. That’s enough to make some squirm.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Farrakhan Endorsement Makes Ground Zero Mosque Backers Squirm

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is the latest to weigh in on the great Ground Zero mosque debate. Predictably, Farrakhan gave fulsome backing to building the mosque at the controversial spot. But Farrakhan took it a step further and just as predictably gave it a racial spin. He said that there are a lot of blacks who are Muslims, and some of them were killed in the 9/11 terror attack. Farrakhan, race, and controversy; the three go hand in hand. That’s always enough to make folk squirm.
In the days building up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the question is how just much will Farrakhan’s public tout of the mosque, make some of the mosque’s fervent backers squirm? Probably not a lot since the battle lines on the mosque are pretty firmly drawn. You’re either for it on religious freedom, tolerance, or constitutional grounds. Or you’re against it on desecration of hallowed soil, insensitivity, or it’s a deliberate provocation grounds.
Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose it for one or all of the reasons cited. The mosque is a religious and political minefield. It was inevitable that Farrakhan would plunge into it. He has that right.
But Farrakhan is instant controversy, and even more instant racial polarization. That was never more evident than during the 2008 presidential campaign. Days after then Democratic presidential contender Obama announced his candidacy, Farrakhan praised and virtually endorsed him in a speech at the Nation of Islam’s annual Savior's Day confab in Chicago. A horrified Team Obama promptly issued this statement: Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister's support." That didn’t satisfy his primary foe Hillary Clinton. She publicly demanded that he forcefully reject Farrakhan's endorsement. Obama did but even then he carefully avoided mentioning Farrakhan by name. It was just too hot. Obama recognized one compelling fact about Farrakhan. He may be a controversial and much vilified figure but he is not a fringe figure within black communities. He is still cheered and admired by thousands of blacks. They are also voters too and most embraced Obama with almost messianic zeal.
Mosque supporters can now count Farrakhan among their ranks. In this mid-term political season that shapes up to be the most hard fought one in decades, the mosque issue is an issue that’s one of the most inflammatory. It pricks, inflames, and punches just about every person’s hot button. It’s almost certain that one or more shrill rightwing websites, bloggers, or radio talk show hacks that froth at building the mosque at the WTC site will throw up Farrakhan’s name as see-I-told-you proof that the mosque is a closet Jihadist conspiracy against the US. That’s enough to make some squirm.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

The Hutchinson Political Report: Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democr...

The Hutchinson Political Report: Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democr...: "Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democrats - New America Media"

Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democrats - New America Media

Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democrats - New America Media

"Obama Hates America"

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The Obama Hates America theme is not hyperbole. It has been relentlessly played for all it’s worth from the second that then Democratic presidential candidate Obama announced in February 2007 that he would seek the White House. It almost certainly will be played hard again in the days leading up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Obama’s one little step that could feed the wacky line is not telling yet where and how he’ll commemorate the day. This in itself supposedly is enough to show that the president disrespects, minimizes, or is cavalier about the hallowed day. It’s none of those things. But it’s just another in the pile of supposed anti-American sins that Obama is guilty of. The nutty knock of Obama as America hater is driven in part by ignorance, in part by politics, and in bigger part by race. The ignorance behind the attack line is easy to understand, and predictable. His name, the birth certificate flap, his frequent statement’s touting religious respect and tolerance for Muslims, and his refusal to flaunt and wave around his very private and personal expression of his Christian faith fuel the stupidity and suspicion about who and what he really is.
The politics behind the attack line is just as comprehensible. The line was set by presidential rival John McCain and run hard with by Sarah Palin VP pick during the campaign. McCain dropped veiled hints that Obama was a far out left liberal who was soft on terrorism, the Iraq war, and the Patriot act enforcement. The implication was that once in the White House he’d give away the company store to America’s sworn enemies.
Palin skipped the hints. She practically roared that Obama pals around with terrorists, left dictators, and commies. And that an Obama win would mean a leftwing takeover of the country. McCain’s hint was shrugged off, and Palin’s hit was outright mocked, ridiculed, and laughed at by much of the media. But millions didn’t laugh. They actually believed that Obama fit easily somewhere between Osama and Castro. Polls continued to show that those that said that Obama was an alien and a closet subversive hovered in the low double digit figure. In the past month, the same polls show that the number who say that about him has doubled, and they all aren’t’ Palin clones and cheerleaders. A lot of Independents and Democrats say the same thing.
Then there’s the unstated; and that’s race. There’s always been a deep feeling among many whites that African-Americans are inherent rebels against America’s institutions and values. During the late 1960’s that feeling took off. The mass civil rights demonstrations, protests, the black power surge, and the urban uprisings turned the myth of permanent black rebellion into the myth of black radicalism. This is and always has been nonsense. Yet, when facts crash hard against ingrained beliefs, and especially beliefs fueled by racial loathing, it’s no contest which will win out.
So it won’t make much difference whether Obama picks the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery, or the moon, to commemorate 9/11. His name, his religious tolerance, his race, and the relentless GOP smear machine have created the perfect storm to tag Obama as the president that hates America. The tweets from Palin, rightwing bloggers, and talk show gabbers snidely implying that Obama’s is that are probably already typed out and ready to go on 9/11 and beyond.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson