Mandisa Says She's Not a Gay 'Advocate'
The title of this post does not refer to Mandisa's statement regarding gays, though that statement does confirm that her preachy brand of Christianity has no room for gays even if her personal philosophy is not to hate anyone.
No, I refer instead to the feeling of validation I experienced as this story went from a personal observation to an article from the Associated Press. Ten days ago, when Mandisa performed "Wanna Praise You" and began with a statement about God being bigger than lifestyles and addictions, I said that it sounded like an anti-gay statement and that people would react. (Of course, I predicted that her statement would win her points with the Christian Right, not cost her support.)
My couch-mate thought I was crazy. No one left a single comment about my post regarding the matter. And it was Katharine, not Mandisa, who found herself in the bottom three the next night.
But just one week later, Mandisa is out--and the media are paying attention to what she said, and speculating that her views may have cost her votes. That's a mighty fine development.
I happen to believe that it was Mandisa's preachiness, her song choices, and her perception as a safe front-runner that did her in long before her rightful time. But if people are willing to believe that making comments perceived to be anti-gay could get her ousted from the most popular show on television, well, that means we're in better shape than I thought.
3 comments:
You are correct: There are bigger issues in our world today than this. But surely it is more important to the world at large whether we become a society that does not tolerate intolerance toward gays than it is whether a somewhat-talented singer remains in a televised singing contest?
Tiger and I spoke about Mandisa early on in the competition - before there was a whiff of any sort of anti-gay sentiment from her - and he said that Mandisa's supporters were probably gay fans of the show. His contention was that gay people and fat people have to stick together. Though his logic is questionable, maybe his theory had truth.
That's quite a theory! I would extend it from "fat people" to outsiders in general; I think gay people have more empathy for others who face social awkwardness because we face it so frequently ourselves.
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