If love was a train but love ain't a train

The L&N don't stop here any more, but apparently it does stop in Crazy Town. Michelle Shocked went on a homophobic rant during her concert in San Francisco last night. I highly recommend Chris Willman's very fair account of the event on the Stop The Presses! music blog.

...After an intermission, Shocked hadn't even gotten to any music when she started talking first about the importance of social media to carry on a dialogue with her fans off-stage, and then about Proposition 8. She started reading some tweets from the stream and having a dialogue about people's impressions, talking about how she was feeling brave at this point and that she was doing the right thing. Then the tone of the conversation became extremely religious and she began talking about the two things most important to her being Jesus Christ and freedom. Then she talked about how she had just come from a prayer meeting the night before, and the people in her prayer meeting were really worried because these are the end times, and they’re the end times because Prop. 8 is going to lead to ministers marrying gay people with a rifle to the head. At which people got a little riled up; then there started to be some call and response from the crowd about what she meant. She started exhorting the crowd very specifically to go ahead and tweet or write and say that Michelle Shocked says God hates f--s, and some other references to the Bible denouncing homosexuality as sinful and abhorrent.

Read the whole thing here.

As you can imagine the blogs--especially the LGBT ones--are all over this.

The Bay Area Reporter had a reporter at the concert:

After the performance Shocked was off the stage and talking with three fans. The B.A.R. asked her to clarify her comments. She seemed interested but a reporter heard one of her fans tell her, "It's a gay paper." Shocked again said, "God bless us everyone." She thanked her fans, began sobbing, and ran from the stage.

 Joe.My.God points out why so many people are so surprised:

The music press has often identified Shocked as lesbian herself, mistakenly it now appears, unless she's gone "ex-gay." Last night her Wikipedia page was changed to read "Michelle Shocked (born Karen Michelle Johnston, February 24, 1962) is a BIGOTED lesbian singer/songwriter." That notation has since been removed.

Queerty also provides a little Shocked's history with gay issues:

“I am a believer. I am a devout practicing Christian,” she told Edge on the Net in 2008. “I don’t like the ring of that because I know so many people who profess the faith, and I look at their social conscious, and I can’t see how they reconcile their faith with their politics.” In that same 2008 interview she confessed to some “inconvenient truths,” like how the Bible teaches homosexuality is immoral. “But homosexuality is no more less a sin than fornication,” she said. “And I’m a fornicator with a capital F.” That’s not the F-word we’re concerned with, Michelle.

I think Jezebel summed up many people's reaction:

Beyond the fact that WHAT THE FUCK, MICHELLE, I honestly just don't understand how human beings can justify wasting their time on shit like "who that dude from spin class wants to marry." And I certainly don't understand how anyone with basic critical thinking skills can characterize those views—that one person wanting to make out with another person has some grave, cosmic, supernatural consequence for the universe—as ANYTHING but mindless-indoctrination-bordering-on-brainwashing. There is no logic here. Even Biblical scholars will tell you that there is no logic here.

Me, I'm mostly just sad. Short, Sharp, Shocked was part of the sound track of my college years. I listened to it pretty much non-stop when it first came out, and it's an album that I often go back to. I really love it.



It feels like I lost touch with a dear college friend only to find out they had joined a cult because, well, that's pretty much what has happened. Thank God I can still count on Tracy Chapman for my leftist, feminist folk music fix.

UPDATE 1: There are rumors and speculation about Michelle Shocked has a history of mental illness, and if that is the case, as seems very likely, I hope she finds a path to wellness and love. Any anger I have is for the homophobic church leaders that got their claws into a vulnerable person and twisted her up to use her as a mouthpiece for their bigotry.

UPDATE 2:  Janis Ian speaks out:

It is sad when a talented person chooses to use that talent in the service of their own misplaced rage, and their disappointment in their own life. I often wonder if people like this die and meet God, who will smack them upside the head and say 'Did I really LOOK like I needed your help?!

It looks like Michelle Shocked will have time to battle whatever demons are chasing her. Not surprisingly, venues are now cancelling Michelle Shocked's shows.