Ah….so maybe I jumped the gun. While I love the idea of politics becoming more inclusive and less bogged down in the mire of paranoia, mudslinging and awfulizing, I think Barack has blown it with his selection for his inaugural invocation.
Warren may not be personally hostile to gays, but his position that gays cannot joinSaddleback Church without repenting of “their homosexual lifestyle” makes it very clear that he — like a lot of religious people — thinks that homosexuality is a sin.
While that’s theologically questionable and scientifically ignorant, it’s not an uncommon belief. But Warren’s sneaking the language off his website hoping nobody would notice it had been there, smacks of manipulation. His public position on the subject (“We love the sinner, but not the sin”) sounds too much like the “separate but equal” rationalization of the mid-century South. And his equating gayness with incest and pedophilia is simply offensive. Calling his critics “Christophobes” only makes matters worse.
While Warren and his followers are entitled to their opinions (however backward), and can let whomever they want into their church as a matter of religious freedom, this is not the kind of closed-mindedness with which I want to see Obama launch his presidency.
The critics were right. I was wrong.
Tolerance works both ways, Barack. Your conciliatory style is admirable. But your choice of Rick Warren? Not so much.
4 responses so far ↓
Tigerman // 26 December 2008 at 11:23 am |
Yeah, this hurts my heart and scares me shitless.
WT
Albert Morell // 27 December 2008 at 10:19 pm |
I was going to respond when you defended Obama on this choice, but didn’t because I didn’t want to rain on a fellow liberal’s parade, but the Warren choice doesn’t surprise me. Obama is first and foremost a politician. His vaunted strength, namely his ability to embrace a diverse constituency, is also his Achilles heel. What I mean by this is that he tends to close circles, even when he doesn’t have to, and he often does so too neatly to be trusted, often out of outright political expediency, as with Warren. During the latter part of his campaign Obama began pandering to Evangelicals, coming out in favor of faith-based social programs. He also changed from being a critic of government surveillance to favoring retroactive immunity for eavesdropping telecommunications firms. His opposition to the war in Iraq, which galvanized liberals, morphed into praise for General Petraeus and the surge, and now his mantra is that he “will listen to his generals” on troop withdrawal; he appointed a hawk like Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State; and he’s planning a major military buildup in Afganistan. He sided with conservative members of the Supreme Court who dissented against the majority ruling that would ban the death penalty in certain cases of rape, and he supported a conservative welfare reform that would cut existing subsidies by 80%. We liberals should be scared shitless. Obama will do some good things under difficult circumstances in the wake of the wreckage left by Bush and Cheney; and many liberals initially will let him off the hook for betraying his campaign promises because of this. Obama’s choice of Warren is despicable, but we should brace for more of the same. It is naive to believe that Obama and this recycled team of “smart”advisers represent the change we’ve been waiting for. In fact, it looks as if, in policies that matter most, the next president will carry on business as usual, as did the Democratic congress led by Pelossi and Reid.
We should be scared shitless.
Albert
Albert Morell // 27 December 2008 at 10:35 pm |
I meant to excise the mid-text “scared shitless” in my comment, but then again the repetition, while stylistically redundant, may otherwise be warranted– because we don’t really want to believe it.
Albert
Josh // 28 December 2008 at 12:06 am |
Yeah, go ahead and bust my Obama bubble.
In truth, I do think he’s a very accomplished, instinctive politician, with a much less liberal bent than the Republicans would have had the nation believe. All that “socialism” crap was just that. The usual fear tactics.
But after Bush, he looks like a freakin’ genius.