The Rev. Patrick J. Walker, President of Baptist Convention of the District of Columbia and Vicinity, who was quoted in the same Christian Post article this week as yours truly, is strongly condemning Mayor Gray’s discrimination of Grammy award winning gospel singer Donnie McClurklin. In the Christian Post article, Walker said the following:

“Mayor Gray continually purports that he supports civil rights. What we’ve come to know, however, is that all civil rights in the faith community are not created equal. This is an outright infringement of Pastor McClurkin’s civil rights. How ironic is that? What kind of ‘peace,’ exactly, are we, in the nation’s capital, reflecting? Mayor Gray is the mayor for all of the people of the District of Columbia, not just the few who agree with him. This was a demonstration of the mayor’s insidious bullying tactics. [He] has systematically and deliberately done everything possible to strike at the fabric of the faith community – at least the sector of us who opposed his views.”

On Monday, Walker released the following statement on behalf of the African-American faith community in Washington, DC that advocated for McClurklin:

The question still remains as to whether the D.C. Office of Human Rights will actually implement these laws and force Mayor Gray to comply with his own order, which forbids the District government and its agencies from discriminating against persons on the basis of sexual orientation. The order reads: “The Director of the D.C. Office of Human Rights, or the designee thereof, is authorized and directed to implement this Order and to monitor the compliance of executive departments and agencies with its directives.”

After seeking further comment from the D.C. Office of Human Rights about their enforcement of the Mayor’s order earlier this week, this is the response I was given:

“We avoid commenting on cases that could potentially come before us, as our office needs to remain neutral on cases until they are fully investigated and a full legal analysis is conducted. We provided the earlier statement because we wanted to ensure your readers were informed that identifying as ex-gay is considered a sexual orientation under the DC Human Rights Act, as decided on in the 2009 DC Superior Court case, but we cannot provide much comment beyond that at this point.”

While we appreciate their communication, we would like the D.C. Office of Human Rights to be more aggressive in publicly enforcing the Mayor’s order of non-discrimination for ex-gays. If they are indeed neutral, they should have no problem doing this.

Christopher Doyle is the President and Co-Founder of Voice of the Voiceless. The only anti-defamation league for former homosexuals, individuals with unwanted same-sex attractions, and their families. For more information, visit: www.VoiceoftheVoiceless.info

The journey continued for me last weekend with another step forward.  I would like to explain what happened, and it’s going to take up a bit of space.

The condensed version is that I staffed a JiM (Journey Into Manhood) weekend and experienced a breakthrough in understanding my SSA (same-sex attraction)

Here is what I already knew: I want to take care of younger men, 20-30 year-old men. This is what my SSA has looked like ever since it started resurfacing in my late thirties. It’s not been about sex, it’s been about emotional connection, this soft spot of caring and compassion inside for some of them, wanting to help them avoid the pitfalls I made, wanting to share what I have learned, showing them the kind of love, acceptance and affection I missed earlier in my life. I have found safe ways to explore this and most of the time it has been healthy. But there have been several cases in which I almost got lost, experiences about which I still carry shame. For lack of a better way to describe it, I fell for a few of them. I crossed a line emotionally – never sexually – and started feeling possessive and attached. I’ve been through this several times in recent years, and as I’ve become stronger and more self-aware, the pull – that urge to take care of the other man, to ease his pain and make his life easier somehow – has gotten easier to manage. But it has never gone away. Last weekend the bubble burst. I felt myself being pulled into one of these emotional attractions again. Rather than freaking out or getting buried in shame, I stayed with it. In between staffing duties at the weekend, I talked it through with a couple of other trusted staff men. Finally, in the last few hours of the weekend, I was actually able touch the core of it, release the shame and hear what the voice inside was saying. For all these years I have been projecting 26-year-old me out onto other men. It’s not them I want most to take care of.  It’s me.  26-year-old me.I was 26 when I walked away from the gay lifestyle for good.I walked away from a man whom I loved deeply. I left my friends, I left my city, I embraced a new spiritual path, I joined a new community and I put down new roots. It was probably the most difficult thing I have ever done.  I believed then, and still believe, that it was the right thing to do. But I never processed it, I never fully talked it out with anyone. There was no Peoplecanchange (PCC) at that time, there were no JiM weekends, therapy was not an option for me. I talked a lot to God, I worked with myself inside, and I shared as much as I could with a couple of men in my new community. But I see now that what I basically did was stuff that life and that man – that young, idealistic 26-year-old man and many of his hopes, dreams, passions, likes, dislikes, crazinesses, talents and abilities – I stuffed him away to walk a new path I felt called to walk. I just did it and never looked back.You can’t really do that.  That young man never went away.  He is still inside me, yearning to be heard, acknowledged, spoken to and loved.  At long last, perhaps for the first time ever, I finally heard him last weekend. In the midst of sobbing uncontrollably on Sunday afternoon when I finally touched the core of this, I kept hearing the voice of this remarkably gifted GUTS leader I got to work with on the weekend. His thundering voice was telling me, “Give it a voice! Give it a voice! Say it! Say it!”  And then from deep inside, 26-year-old me spoke: “Listen to me. I’m in pain. Acknowledge me. Honor me.  Accept me. Love me.”

I finally get it.

So I have come up with three stretches. First, I have started writing a long letter to 26-year-old David. I’m talking to him about the challenges he is going to face, advising him what to do, explaining how it’s going to feel and trying to comfort and reassure him it’s going to be all right. I’m doing for him exactly what I have already done for a number of men I have come to know and care about on this path. I’m fathering him, mentoring him in this letter. I have just started, but already it feels unbelievably right and good. When I write then read back what I have written, I feel whole.

Second, I am going to start owning my age. I’m fifty years old. Ever since I started doing this work, I have always related more readily and easily to guys half my age. I tell myself that is because that’s when I shut myself down to bottle up my SSA, when I was the age they are now. That’s fine I guess, but in many other ways I am definitely not that age anymore and nothing in me wants to be. I’m wiser, more grounded, and have figured out so many things by now that the thought of going back actually repulses me.

So my second stretch is to make three lists by the end of this coming weekend:

*What I loved about being 26

*What I don’t miss about being 26

*What I love about being me now

The last stretch is over a longer term – to actively and consciously start shifting my focus back to 26-year-old me when I start feeling one of these care-taking attractions coming up inside.  I want this shift to become automatic someday.  Not sure how difficult this will be because I have never really worked at it before.  But at least now I see where I need to go.

So that’s it.  If you made it this far, thanks taking the time to read.  Writing about this stuff and getting these things in front of me helps me stay clear.  It is my hope that sharing it might help someone else, too.

Peace and blessings,
Your brother,
David

Note: This article was originally published at: http://www.jonahweb.org/article.php?secId=344

It’s a sad day in America when a Grammy Award winning Gospel singer, who is African-American, gets uninvited to perform at a civil rights celebration honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. because it would “offend” gay activists.

But that’s exactly what has happened. Gay activists have successfully hijacked the civil rights movement in America, and last Saturday, held the city of Washington, D.C. and its Mayor Vincent Gray hostage unless ex-gay Donnie McClurklin was uninvited.

McClurkin was scheduled to headline the concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. But gay activists objected because of his public statements opposing homosexuality and ex-gay testimony of being molested by male relatives as a child, living a gay life, and then coming out of homosexuality. “I’ve been through this and have experienced God’s power to change my lifestyle,” he wrote. “I am delivered and I know God can deliver others, too,” commented McClurkin in a 2002 online testimony.

Because of McClurkin’s ex-gay testimony and politically-incorrect views on homosexuality, he was labeled divisive and hateful by gay activists, who urged the Mayor to eliminate him from the D.C.-government-sponsored concert at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial titled: “Reflections on Peace: From Gandhi to King.” Mayor Gray asked McClurkin to withdraw from the event, saying: “The Arts and Humanities Commission and Donnie McClurkin’s management decided that it would be best for him to withdraw because the purpose of the event is to bring people together.”

But according to McClurkin’s video statement posted online Saturday, it was not a mutual decision. Rather, he was on his way to the airport to fly up to Washington, D.C. on Friday when he received a call from the Mayor’s office saying he had been “uninvited from a concert that (he) was supposed to headline.”

In a phone interview on Monday with Voice of the Voiceless (VoV), Rob Marus, Communications Officer of the Washington, D.C. Mayor’s Office, confirmed that, “You cannot be discriminated against (in Washington, D.C.) because of your sexual orientation.” When asked if the Mayor’s office was aware that former homosexuals are covered under the Washington, D.C. sexual orientation non-discrimination laws, Marus commented: “Yes, we are aware that former homosexuals are a protected class against discrimination in the District, and yes, Mr. McClurkin has full freedom of speech and expression.”

So if McClurkin has full freedom of speech rights and is protected under sexual orientation non-discrimination laws, then Mayor Gray and the Washington, D.C. Arts and Humanities Commission seem to have committed a crime by eliminating McClurkin from the concert due to his statements on homosexuality and his ex-gay orientation.

In a statement over uninviting McClurkin, Mayor Gray said “the purpose of the event is to promote peace and harmony. That is what King was all about.”

But it was gay activists who threatened to protest and cause dissention at the event due to their intolerance for ex-gays and McClurkin’s views, not ex-gays and Christians protesting against inclusion for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons at the MLK Jr. Memorial Concert.

“If these gay activists were really about “peace and harmony” they would have come together and supported McClurkin’s music and participation, despite their differences,” commented Christopher Doyle, President and Co-Founder of Voice of the Voiceless. “Rather than focusing on McClurkin’s views of homosexuality and his decision to leave the gay life, these activists should have, in the spirit of cooperation, focused on what brings us all together – our differences. Instead, it proved to be yet another assault on freedom of speech and religious liberty by a group that demands tolerance the most, yet affords it the least.”

Nolan Williams, the concert’s director, said he would have preferred McClurkin to have performed. “Even in Tiananmen Square, they were singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’ The fight for human rights is a global fight that has to bring us together,” Williams said. “That has to bring us together whenever there are differences of opinions or differences in views. We still need to find a place to come together even when we don’t agree.”

It was later reported by The Christian Post that McCluklin’s promoters tried to have his act go on as scheduled and even rallied local D.C. pastors to put pressure on the mayor, but “the mayor’s office systematically and continually shut it down…” claimed McClurkin. Mayor Gray “refused to concede,” even after some pastors advocated on his behalf, McClurkin added.

In his video statement online, McClurkin said: “There should be freedom of speech as long as it’s done in love,” adding that he believes it is unfortunate that in today’s world, “a black man, a black artist is uninvited from a civil rights movement depicting the love, the unity, the peace, the tolerance.”

After consulting with the DC Office of Human Rights, VoV was sent the following statement yesterday afternoon:

“We are fortunate that in the District of Columbia, individuals cannot be discriminated because of their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. In 2009, the DC Superior Court ruled that those who identify as ex-gay are protected under the sexual orientation trait of the DC Human Rights Act, the District’s non-discrimination law. Therefore people who identify as ex-gay can file a complaint with our office if they believe they have been discriminated against while accessing housing, employment, a public accommodation or educational institution.”

Now, the question remains as to whether the D.C. Office of Human Rights will actually implement these laws and force Mayor Gray to comply with his own order, which forbids the District government and its agencies from discriminating against persons on the basis of sexual orientation. The order reads: “The Director of the D.C. Office of Human Rights, or the designee thereof, is authorized and directed to implement this Order and to monitor the compliance of executive departments and agencies with its directives.”

Therefore, the D.C. Office of Human Rights is obligated to take action and monitor the compliance of the D.C. Commission of the Arts and Humanities, which made the decision to remove Donnie McClurklin. The D.C. Office of Human Rights should also urge Mayor Gray to follow his own order which demands that “discrimination in violation of the Act will not be tolerated. Violators will be subject to disciplinary action.”

Stand with us and Demand that Mayor Vincent Gray and the Washington, D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities Apologize For Discriminating Against Grammy-Award Winning Gospel Singer and Ex-Gay Donnie McClurkin and for the D.C. Office of Human Rights to force the Mayor and D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities to comply with the Mayor’s own anti-discrimination Issuance. Click here to sign the petition.

 Christopher Doyle, M.A. is the Co-Founder and President of Voice of the Voiceless. For more information, visit: www.VoiceoftheVoiceless.info

Mambaonline marvels over the fact that a “few people attended the rally for former homosexuals in Washington, DC.”

May it be said that even the gay rights movement started with a humble beginning. Christopher Doyle, President and Co-Founder of Voice of the Voiceless is quoted saying:

“July 31, 2013 was a great day for former homosexuals in America! While the turnout was humble, the enthusiasm among those who participated in Ex-Gay Pride was immeasurable. Anti-ex-gay extremists are gleeful that “less than ten people showed up”…actually, by my count, nine former homosexuals (including an ex-transgender) and a half-dozen more allies came out to lobby Congress and show support at the press conference in front of the Supreme Court. While that number may be small, we have to start somewhere.”

Doyle continues:

“In my view, it is significant in our current anti-ex-gay climate that even ONE former homosexual is willing to share their experience and speak out publicly….  It only takes ONE ex-gay that has changed to put a wrench in the ‘born that way, cannot change’ strategy they [gay activists’] are using to deceive the public. The fact is, these activists cannot handle the existence of ONE person who says they have experienced change from same-sex attraction to opposite sex attraction, much less nine of us telling our stories at one time. So they need to mock, belittle, and downplay the significance of yesterday’s events. That is why there is so much anger. So much intimidation. So much disrespect. So much harassment.”

In South Africa the former homosexual awareness campaign is up and running. What started with a public declaration is now spreading like a wild fire amongst government officials, the South African human rights commission, the Justice Department, the media, gay organizations, clergy, political parties, medical profession, psychological profession, and even the ordinary citizens.

An open letter was also addressed to the honorable Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Constitutional Court Judge Cameron, UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, regarding the global public education campaign to raise awareness and respect for LGBTI equality, they announced in Cape Town, South Africa. It was brought to their attention that it is outright discrimination against former homosexuals to be excluded from this campaign and not to raise awareness and respect for them.

Let it be known, that a mustard seed once germinated becomes a full grown tree.

André Bekker is an Advisory Board Member of Voice of the Voiceless and a Theological Counselor with New Living Way Ministry in South Africa, ministering to people with Unwanted Same-Sex Attraction, their families, and loved ones.