“I am embarrassed to say that I was not aware of this, and we obviously should have vetted him further.

“I learned yesterday…of the depth and breadth of Donnie McClurkin’s views on the gay community,” wrote Julie Burns, then-Director of Arts, Tourism and Special Events for the Mayor’s Office, in an email.

McClurkin was billed as the main event in the 2010 Boston GospelFest, and many African-American LGBTQ communities were not in attendance at the event, nor was the mayor. Because the GospelFest was a public and taxpayer-funded community event, it was open to all. In 2010, Pastor McClurkin’s homophobic past came back to haunt him.Įvery year, then-Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s Office of Arts, Tourism, and Special Events put on its annual GospelFest at City Hall Plaza. McClurkin “testi-lies” that he was cured by deliverance from God and his manhood was restored by becoming the biological father of a child. And this started a pathology,” McClurkin stated on The Tom Joyner Morning Show in 2013.Ĭonfusing same-gender sexual violence with homosexuality, McClurkin misinterpreted the molestation as the reason for his sexual orientation. “You can’t call me a homophobic if I’ve been a homosexual… My thing was from raped. McClurkin attributed his own homosexuality to being raped twice as a child – first at age eight by his uncle and again at age thirteen by his cousin (his uncle’s son). Slade), who unapologetically stated that he “didn’t struggle with his sexual attraction to men.”Īccording to McClurkin, Black men like Tonéx are gay because of sexual molestation, an absentee father, or because they didn’t have strong male images around them. While the Black LGBTQ community would applaud someone of McClurkin’s status telling the truth about his sexual past, many of us can’t care because of decades of damning and damaging messages he hurled at us.Īt the Holy Convocation International Youth Department Worship Service in 2009, McClurkin espoused his ex-gay rhetoric, castigating former talented gospel industry worker Tonéx (B. McClurkin’s sexuality has been an open secret, but now, at 61 years old, McClurkin is lamenting about growing old and being alone. He compares his gay desires to diabetes: “I don’t eat sugar, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want sugar.” McClurkin admitted he still has sexual urges to be with men but won’t act on them. My past relationships were a sprinkling of everything–men and women.” “I didn’t know really what a woman wanted,” he said. In a recent episode of TV One’s Uncensored, Pastor Donnie McClurkin – a three-time Grammy winner and the former poster boy for African American ex-gay ministries – talked about his sexual past.

This coincides with our episode on ' Black Sexuality, Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Check out Reverend Irene Monroe's latest column on Pastor Donnie McClurkin.

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