SAN FRANCISCO — Self-described “anarchist skateboard punk” singer Michelle Shocked surprised and angered audience members on Sunday night after the alternative rocker went into a tirade against Proposition 8 at a San Francisco concert. “”When they stop Prop 8 and force priests at gunpoint to marry gays, it will be the downfall of civilization, and Jesus will come back,” reports The Guardian. The 50-year-old singer and self-confessed born-again Christian followed her stunning remark with, “”You are going to leave here and tell people, ‘Michelle Shocked said God hates faggots.'”
According to the report, Shocked was asked to leave the stage numerous times before Yoshi management, where the show was being performed, pulled the plug and turned up the lights. Matt Penfield, who was hired to act as Shocked’s Twitter intermediary, summed up the feelings of many. “”It was a very painful experience to go through. To be that close to someone who is clearly having a breakdown of some sort is not an emotionally comfortable place to be. I’m still a little bit shaken up. And I don’t like to see people vilified”—as he’s well aware Shocked is being today. “I still love her music and I’m not going to delete her from my playlist or go smash CDs. But if she has made a conscious decision that she is going to use the stage to espouse beliefs that are hateful and damage groups of people, she probably should not be charging money for a concert.”
Afterwards, activist John Becker created a petition on Change.org, which has been signed by over 1400 people demanding that Shocked be held responsible for her hate speech and has urged more than a dozen venues to cancel her upcoming shows. As of the most recent reports, nine venues have cancelled Michelle Shocked.
Michelle Shocked, who has routinely toured with the all-women’s concert Lilith Fair, appeared on the music seen in the late 1980s and while never quite a breakout success in the United States, appeared to have more success in England where three of her albums broke the top-50 charts.
