Michelle Shocked Slur Shocks Fans: Singer's Comments That 'God Hates' Gay People Causes Show Cancellations

A Michelle Shocked anti-gay slur that stunned the crowd at San Francisco club Yoshi's on Sunday has caused the singer to cancel at least five planned performances.

"You are going to leave here and tell people, 'Michelle Shocked said God hates f*gs," Shocked said to the crowd according to the Los Angeles Times.

Immediately following the Michelle Shocked slur, which the "Graffiti Limbo" singer made near the beginning her second set, the lights at Yoshi's were dimmed and her microphone was turned off, according to the Associated Press.

The show was over.

The anti-gay slur has reportedly caused Shocked to cancel five shows, including a May performance in Boulder, Colorado for the radio show eTown.

The gay slur was mystifying to many Michelle Shocked fans, considering when the singer was interviewed at the height of her fame in the 1980s, she was vague about her sexuality.

When nominated for an award with Tracy Chapman and the Indigo Girls, Shocked joked that the award could have been for "best lesbian vocalist." The singer was an outspoken opponent of sexual typecasting.

In the decades that followed, Shocked became a born-again Christian, which could perhaps explain the change of heart.

"Truth is leading to painful confrontation," Shocked tweeted following her March 17 anti-gay slur, with the hashtag #shortsharpshocked.

"I wish we could stay but if that's 'reality' you can have it," concertgoer Casey Caston responded on Twitter Sunday night after the show ended. "You have our love but not our respect. Goodbye."

Christopher Denny was not surprised.

"Michelle's a fundamentalist now," Denny tweeted. "So of course she's against a woman's right to choose & gay marriage."

He added:

"She's more of an adherent to teachings of the church than the teachings of Jesus Christ. But that's her call."

Cole Coonce took Denny's juxtaposition of Shocked and Christ to the next level.

"Apparently, earlier both were loved for being quirky, but now are objects of pity and derision for fomenting hate."

Michelle Shocked fan and Twitter user Madfoot disagreed.

"I never thought of Michelle Shocked as quirky," she wrote. "I thought of her as awesome. No longer."

Yet was the controversy all part of her plan? According to Caston, Shocked said the anti-gay slur at Sunday's San Francisco show was all to stir up the Twittesphere.

"I think she said [the anti-gay slur] ironically," Caston said. "[The singer said] 'you can go on Twitter and say Michelle Shocked said god hates f*gs.'"

Yet Christine Penfield said the shocking Michelle Shocked slur wasn't meant ironically.

"She said 'please tweet that Michelle Shocked said on stage that God hates f*ggots,'" crowd member Penfield replied. "There was no irony.

Actor and Spinal Tap guitarist Michael McKean took the Michelle Shocked gay slur as a chance to riff on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon.

"I am completely Johnston at the behavior of Michelle Shocked," he wrote.