Barack broke his relative silence on his Donnie McClurkin scandal in a rare, but oh, so necessary, interview in The Advocate.

Part of the reason that we have had a faith outreach in our campaigns is precisely because I don’t think the LGBT community or the Democratic Party is served by being hermetically sealed from the faith community and not in dialogue with a substantial portion of the electorate, even though we may disagree with them.

Part of what I have done in my campaign and in my career is be willing to go to churches and talk to ministers and tell them exactly what I think. And go straight at some of these issues of homophobia that exist in the church in a way that no other candidate has done.

But, now that it’s come out that Barack Obama rejected two black gay ministers and Michael Erick Dyson as participants in his controversial South Carolina gospel tour in favor of a gay white minister, a new can of worms has been open. But at least the controversy over his dedication to the black community is one he’s used to.

The whole thing has been idiotic on Obama’s part, yes, but it’s pretty preposterous to persecute him for pandering to southern black churchygoers, many of whom believe homosexuality is a sin, when all of the candidates do it. Show me a presidential candidate who has never shaken the hand of a person who is anti-gay under the guise of Christianity, and I’ll show you someone who’s probably not getting the nomination.