Jon-Marc McDonald (born September 20, 1976) is an American-born writer, playwright, political campaign manager and political activist. McDonald gained national attention when, at the age of 21, he simultaneously came out of the closet as a gay man and resigned as campaign manager from the 1998 United States congressional campaign of conservative Republican candidate Brian Babin.
On May 27, 2016, McDonald presented his paper, "Relatively Conscious: the Enduring Rage of Baldwin and the Education of a White Southern Baptist Queer," as well as chaired a panel discussion entitled "Baldwin's Rage and Ethics" at the annual International James Baldwin Conference in Paris, France. The paper was subsequently published in volume 2 of the James Baldwin Review.
In February 2018, McDonald's play, Relatively Conscious, premiered at the New York Theater Festival in New York City. Described as historical fiction, the play centers around the brutal murder of James Byrd Jr., and includes a character resembling McDonald who also resigns as campaign manager from a fictitious congressional campaign.
McDonald is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University.
Early life
McDonald was born in Fort Worth, Texas to Lyn and John McDonald. He has one younger brother, Grant. McDonald is the grandson of the late James E. Coggin, an influential Southern Baptist minister.
Education
McDonald attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he majored in history. He was the president of his freshman class, an electoral commissions member and served as a representative on the student government. McDonald writes of his college years "Baylor is a really conservative school in a really conservative town in a really conservative state. And I was doing my best at pretending to be a really conservative student with a really conservative girlfriend studying really conservative things. But I had a secret."
McDonald dropped out of Baylor before returning years later to complete his degree at Empire State College (ESC). At ESC, McDonald served for two years as an editor for the school's literary and arts journal. McDonald graduated with a 4.0 GPA in 2017.
McDonald is a current graduate student in the creative nonfiction writing program at Columbia University.
Political controversy
At the age of 21, McDonald resigned from the 1998 United States congressional campaign of Brian Babin, Republican candidate of Texas's 2nd district.
After working on the campaign for three months, McDonald, who is openly gay, abruptly stepped down, citing "irreconcilable differences" with Babin over the issue of homosexuality. According to The Dallas Morning News, McDonald announced his resignation via press release without discussing it with Babin, and his sudden departure left those in the campaign shocked and confused. In the press release, McDonald wrote "There comes a time when your convictions take precedence over your job, your title and your status."
McDonald generated further press coverage when he stated in an interview after his resignation that Babin thought "homosexuals should be shot", a claim Babin adamantly denied. In some press reports, Babin claimed that McDonald was not the campaign manager, but instead a "volunteer coordinator", also a paid position. An article by Hastings Wyman of the Southern Political Report suggested that McDonald was forced to resign by the local media threatening to "out" him.
The resignation received widespread national media attention because of the sensationalistic way it transpired.
McDonald's account of the resignation varies somewhat from the reported accounts. On his political website, Screaming from the Rooftop, McDonald recalls the resignation by cryptically writing in his blog "...after a series of events I resigned from the campaign." Later in the same post McDonald claims that he was "...the youngest campaign manager working on a federal level campaign" in the 1998 United States midterm election cycle and describes his motivation for originally taking the job by writing that he "decided to briefly return to the closet in exchange for the superficial satisfaction of doing something that no one else [his] age was doing."