The God-Fearing
Posted on December 28, 2008 at 11:19 pmChris Sanders tries to wake up Rick Warren to the fact that not all those who advocate for gay rights are “Christophobic”:
Religious diversity is as much a part of the GLBT community as any other segment of the community. If there seems to be more of a gap, perhaps that’s because the loudest voices in American Christianity have been at the front of the line in opposing our rights. But Warren doesn’t speak for Christianity and he doesn’t have a broad enough constituency (millions of copies of poorly written books notwithstanding) to say that anyone who disagrees with him is Christophobic.
We’re not afraid of Christ, Mr. Warren. We’re afraid of the effects of your divisive rhetoric. You would do well to take a page from the president-elect by reaching out more and stop making up fear-based disorders.
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Zach Wamp On Obama’s Rickroll
Posted on December 19, 2008 at 1:47 pmCurrent Chattanooga congressman and future Gubernatorial candidate weighs in on Rick Warren, Barack Obama’s choice to give the 2008 inaugural invocation:
Rick Warren performed a great service during the election of 2008 at the Saddleback forum. Without taking sides, millions of people who believe, like me, that God created us to serve Him and each other with all policy resting on that foundation, were able to hear the perspectives of the major party nominees on issues of importance. He is not Billy Graham and may never be, but he is off to a good start.
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Top Of The Food Chain
Posted on at 8:46 amPete Kotz thinks that Barack Obama may have picked Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inaurgaration so that he can halp fashion a kinder, gentler evangelicalism.
Plus, by elevating Warren’s stature, he’s helping to place the preacher atop the evangelical movement, tactically pushing aside bigger kooks who could cause him problems down the road. Though Warren may have worked against gay freedom in California, he’s the rare evangelical who preaches just as strong against poverty and pollution.
Explaining Obama’s Inaugural Invocation Rickroll
Posted on December 18, 2008 at 9:09 amSo you were expecting a Unitarian Universalist? A woman from some enlightened liberal mainline denomination, perhaps?
For all those upset about Barack Obama picking evangelical pastor Rick Warren to do the inaugural invocation, I have two questions.
One, who exactly did you think we elected President of the United States?
And two, what about the election results leads you to believe that Barack Obama will be looking to satiate your every liberal longing?
First things first, Barack Obama is nothing if not a politician. He may have run as a revolutionary, fresh-faced change agent but he didn’t get where he is by being stupid or naive. He did not get where he is by kowtowing to some narrow liberal ideology. He got where he is by surveying the landscape looking for an in and then proceeding to do what was necessary to stay in.
This is a man who became editor of the Harvard Law review, the first African American in that position, not by playing to his base, not by rewarding those who by necessity have to back him in the end, but by reaching out to those who may oppose him.
Barack Obama got to be the editor of the Harvard Law review by exploiting who he was and who he was imagined to be, sure, but he also reached out to the opposition in order to either gain their support or, just as good, quiet their animus.
Remember who received the payback once Obama was installed as editor at Harvard. It was not the campus liberal and blacks, at least not exclusively, it was the conservative Federalist Society.
This is man with a history of moving away from his base once he has achieved power. Because, in the end, it wasn’t really the activists and strong Democrats who gave him his margins of victory in 2008.
They voted for Mondale, Duakisis, Gore and Kerry, after all. And they all lost.
Obama’s margin of victory came from those independents and Republicans who, after eight years of disgrace, took a chance on the new, fresh-faced Democrat.
Despite the “enlightened” agnostic, humanist views of his more vociferous supporters, this country is still a very religious place and that religion, while certainly not the strident theocratic nonsense of Pat Robertson, is not an unconservative one.
Politics is not just about getting elected and then proceeding to enact and advocate immediately the policy wishes of your base. It is about establishing a mandate. It is about marginalizing your opposition.
Choices like this one will do just that. Rick Warren’s presence at the inauguration will make conservative leaders look out of touch and unhinged every time they try to paint Obama a cultural alien. That has power.
Obama is not a man looking to just get by politically. His 50 state strategy proved that. He doesn’t just seek to govern, he means to rule. To do that, he needs not only his base but the support of those who either did not or reluctantly pushed that button for him. He needs his opposition marginalized and declawed.
This choice does all that symbolically while in real terms does nothing to change policy. It changes only perception.
And interestingly, despite the bile coming from the Left over the decision, it is this traditional religious and, yes, conservative perception that Obama will need if he is ever to change hearts and minds on the issue of gay rights and other social issues.
Just as it took a fervent anti-communist to open the door to China, it will take a man who takes religion seriously to ever transform evangelicalism into a progressive force for change.
Liberals may not like this decision viscerally but after somber reflection they must give credit to Obama for the political masterstroke here and recognize that, in the end, he made the only choice that could ever serve to advance the liberal agenda on the very issues they are now so up in arms about in regard to Rick Warren.
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Purpose Driven Homosexuals
Posted on December 17, 2008 at 5:16 pmGay groups are up in arms over Barack Obama’s choice of an evangelical pastor to give the inaugural invocation
Rick Warren has not sat on the sidelines in the fight for basic equality and fairness. In fact, Rev. Warren spoke out vocally in support of Prop 8 in California saying, “there is no need to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population … This is not a political issue — it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about.” Furthermore, he continues to misrepresent marriage equality as silencing his religious views. This was a lie during the battle over Proposition 8, and it’s a lie today.
McCain Doesn’t Try To Hide The Scarlett Letter
Posted on August 18, 2008 at 5:57 amThe Median Sib praises John McCain for fully embracing Pastor Rick Warren’s question about his greatest moral failing:
McCain, on the other hand, demonstrated a clear understanding of his position on the issues and had the ability to reply succinctly and, I might add, humbly at times. I thought his reply about his greatest personal moral failing was amazing. He faced the #1 moral failing that the dems blast him on (something that happened over 25 years ago) and admitted that yes, it WAS a moral failing, and yes, he is an imperfect person. He didn’t try to explain it away or cloud the issue.
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Liberadio(!)
American Conservative
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