Clay Aiken gave his, “About damn time” speech for the politically polarizing group, ‘Human Rights Campaign’ (HRC). ”About damn time” is what many of us said when Clay Aiken came out in People Magazine a few years go- announcing that he did so because “he didn’t want to teach his son to lie” while reminding his fans that he didn’t lie to them- he just skirted the truth some.
It wouldn’t be a Clay Aiken speech if he didn’t find a way to insult someone or some group. In his speech, Clay brought up Brown vs the Board of Education which led to the desegregation of schools, claiming that the Wake County School Board would disagree with the decision by the Supreme Court. Only someone ignorant would make such a statement. No Wake County school board member disagrees with the Supreme Court’s decision. What Wake County school members believe is that ALL schools should be equal in education and standards, and that school children should not be bussed across county to attend school when there are schools that are located locally. They believe that a student’s time is best served studying and not sitting on a noisy bus for an hour. No school board member is supporting restricting one group or another from attending a school. If Clay Aiken has witnessed such, then I demand he speak up and tell each of us which school is denying Blacks, Hispanics, Asian, etc from attending. Just because you don’t like the outcome of an election it doesn’t give you the right to exaggerate claims or concoct discrimination where none exists.
Continuing on in his speech, Clay now claims that he was waiting for “thing$ to change” before he came out. Really? Was that before or after he told People Magazine that he “didn’t want to teach his son to lie”? What thing$ was he waiting to see change? If he was waiting for people’s opinions about gays to change or for people to be more accepting of gays to change, then the best way to affect such change would have been to come out and demonstrate that gay people are just like anyone else. Or… he could have defended those like his ex boyfriend John Dahlstrom who came under vicious attack by his fans who were upset with the idea that Clay was dating his then hairstylist. Or… rather than perform at a Church who damned gays to hell and that went out of its way to defend Clay’s heterosexuality by sending out a letter to its church members, Clay could have demanded that the concert be held at a more accepting place. Or… rather than pointing the finger at those who aren’t accepting, maybe he can lead by example by educating his own unaccepting family members.
I applaud Clay for giving a speech on human rights and equality, but it takes more than just giving a 4 1/2 minute speech to a group of gay/gay friendly people in a room, it takes activism… it takes leading by example to affect the change that he’s calling for.
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