Let's Be Clear on "Hate"

POSTED BY JHW22

I keep seeing a Rick Warren quote popping up on Facebook. Hell, I don't know if he really said it but here it is:

"Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate." -Rick Warren

Days after all the Chik-Fil-A crap, and some people STILL don't understand that the left isn't mad about what the head of Chick-fil-a SAID. We're pissed at what he DID. He funded groups that take rights away from gay people -- preventing them from marrying, adopting, getting jobs and in parts of the world LIVING. Yes, the head of Chick-fil-a helps fund a group that supports the execution of gays in Africa.

You can SAY that doesn't mean he hates gay people if you want. But when you support people being executed for being gay, I guess you can say Hitler didn't hate gays when he sent them to the camps.

Semantics, I guess.

And really, when you use the "it doesn't mean I hate them" as a distraction from the real issue that you oppose civil rights, it's as if you're defensive about being called a hater. Gee, I think a gay person is probably MORE defensive about having their rights taken away.

Quote of the Day

"Oh, Tim, if you’re looking for someone who’s never changed any positions on any policies, then I’m not your guy." 

~Mitt Romney to Tim Russert, on Meet the Press in 2007

Well, no shit, Sherlock. Mitt Romney has taken changing policy positions, AKA flip-flopping in his case, to an art form.

This quote was unearthed by Think Progress in regards to the resignation of openly gay policy advisor Richard Grenell, affirming at the time that Romney doesn't think it's the job of the federal government to protect workers from being fired based on sexual orientation. Based on the recent caving to the evangelical right on the Grenell affair, it seems this is one of the few policy issues on which he hasn't flip-flopped.

No Mitt, you're not my guy.

Gay Marriage, The States, and Pitchforks

POSTED BY JHW22

I am staying as far from the fray as I can in regards to the post-victory letdown of the passage of gay marriage in New York. From what I gather, a certain self-made martyr and an intelligent, if not emotional and often too myopic, journalist, have decided to dampen celebrations with hyperbole that suggests, in a roundabout way, that Obama hates gay people. They haven't come out (pun intended?) and said he does, as far as I know, but the implications gushing forth from a certain faction of the Angry Left is that Obama doesn't ever want gay people to get married.

Now, he has said he doesn't support gay marriage from a personal perspective (totally paraphrasing but pretty spot-on) but has never taken actions as President to prevent it. Many articles have illustrated how he has actually done MORE than any other President to advance the rights of the LGBT community so I am not going to try to reinvent that wheel.

What I want to focus on is an angle many people miss on many issues. This is just the latest example of the issue I call the "I want unrealistic perfection" syndrome. And this syndrome usually manifests itself in a form of rewriting 2008 campaign history. It results in the Angry Left misrememberstanding (yep, I made up a word) who was running and what our choices were. It results in some la la land delusion of "we could have had someone better" or "(insert candidate) wouldn't have betrayed us".

Here's what Obama said last week that got panties in a bunch:

And since I taught constitutional law for a while, I felt like I was in a pretty good position to agree with courts that have ruled that Section 3 of DOMA violates the Constitution. And that’s why we decided, with my attorney general, that we could no longer defend the constitutionality of DOMA in the courts.

Now, part of the reason that DOMA doesn’t make sense is that traditionally marriage has been decided by the states. And right now I understand there’s a little debate going on here in New York — (laughter) — about whether to join five other states and D.C. in allowing civil marriage for gay couples. And I want to — I want to say that under the leadership of Governor Cuomo, with the support of Democrats and Republicans, New York is doing exactly what democracies are supposed to do. There’s a debate; there’s deliberation about what it means here in New York to treat people fairly in the eyes of the law.

That has been debated as hypocrisy because that's the argument used against his bi-racial parents, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But this isn't only Obama's rationale. Nope, someone else said almost the same thing:

Well, I prefer to think of it as being very positive about civil unions. You know, it's a personal position. How we get to full equality is the debate we're having, and I am absolutely in favor of civil unions with full equality of benefits, rights, and privileges. I want to proceed with equalizing federal benefits.

And I've also been a very strong supporter of letting the states maintain their jurisdiction over marriage. I want to repeal Section 3 of DOMA, which stands in the way of the extension of benefits to people in committed, same-sex relationships. I will be very strongly in favor of doing that as president.

That's what Hillary Clinton said while running for the job we elected Obama to do.

So, be grumpy that Obama has issues with gay marriage that don't sound liberal enough to you. Fine. But let's not pretend someone else in the Oval Office, and I mean a real person and not some imaginary one, would be handling this differently.

My friends here at Broadway Carl have a perspective on this. Some consider us irrelevant or gay-bashing for disagreeing with SOME people who happen to be gay (while at the same time agreeing with many people who happen to be gay -- go figure). But when the facts are clear and when Obama has shown, repeatedly, to be progressive on gay rights, then the hyperbole and exaggeration and speculation are what I consider irrelevant.

And frankly, Obama has acted in the most honestly separation-of-church-and-state way possible. If his personal beliefs on gay marriage are based on his religious studies and thought, and yet he is moving toward more and more rights for gay couples, then he is demonstrating, repeatedly, that he knows how to keep his personal beliefs separate from his professional responsibilities. He has created two silos -- one with a man's views and one with a President's views.

What should matter is what he puts in the Presidential silo. What should matter is that he doesn't allow personal beliefs to affect how he governs. And that is precisely what I think he is doing.

Dedicated to Mr. Anonymous

Posted by JHW22

Since our loyal watcher, Mr. Anonymous, seems to enjoy the topic of hypocrisy, this post is for him.

I was watching Rachel Maddow interview Joe "Constitution Ninja" Miller regarding the very Constitution he so ardently defends and protects and seems to know better than anyone else (because he's a lawyer or because he's a Conservative -- I'm not sure which is more qualifying these days).

MADDOW: Do you think there should be a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage?

MILLER: That’s up to the people. You’ve got a three-quarters vote, ratified, I’d vote for it.

MADDOW: You would vote for it?

MILLER: Yeah, I would. But it would require an amendment to the Constitution.

Now, I am no Constitutional scholar, attorney, or Conservative (who appear to be the only people who are allowed to comment on the Constitution these days) but I am pretty sure there is some inherent hypocrisy when Joe "Amendments are Bull Crap" Miller thinks stuff like this:

He called the idea of a living, changing Constitution “bullcrap,” and said he would support an amendment for term limits as well as an amendment repealing the 17th Amendment, which allows for the direct election of senators by the public rather than by state legislatures.

I am hoping Mr. Anonymous checks in and explains this contradiction in beliefs that it is okay to change the Constitution for some but not for others. You'd think that a staunch defender of the original writing of the Constitution, like Joe "Written in Cement" Miller would NOT want to alter it to limit the rights of some considering the original said something about securing "Blessings of Liberty" (but what's the significance of a preamble anyway, right?) Apparently, Joe "Except for You" Miller thinks it's okay to restrict the rights of teh gays via an amendment but I guess all the other amendments, written post-Founders, should be stripped or something?

I will be a catalyst to move those in Congress to make the tough, principled decisions needed to bring Washington back to the limited role anticipated by our Founders. We must act now.

I can totally see how banning marriage for 10%+ of the public is bringing back a limited role of government. It makes total sense -- in someone's alternate interpretation of the supposed document that is not living or open to anyone's interpretation but his.

I tend to agree with the man who wrote the Alaska State Constitution, Vic Fisher, when he said:

I would think a Yale Law School graduate would understand that a Constitution is a framework -- a foundation for the future.

In some ways, Joe "Keeping it Real" Miller thinks that the document is living and is adaptable depending on the mood of the country. In other ways he thinks it's meant to be stuck in the day when not everyone had a say in how that document could be adapted. Therein lies the hypocrisy. I do hope Mr. Anonymous will shed some light on this issue. I hope he uses original thought, however. I'd hate to read the same talking points I could find by a simple Google search.

How Did Fox Miss This Story?

Jon Stewart is awesome.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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www.thedailyshow.com
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The Wingnuts Are Coming, But We Have Hope - UPDATED

"I'm a California doctor who must choose between my faith and my job."

Seriously? What doctor will be unable to do his or her job because of gay marriage?

Maggie Gallagher, President of the National Organization for Marriage insists that their latest "gay marriage will make us all gay" commercial is "based on real incidents." Looks like it's a little too scripted for my taste. And badly scripted at that.



Once again, these people cannot separate legal, state sanctioned marriage and a religious marriage ceremony. This has nothing to do with their faith. By the way, does the state require a marriage license or is just the religious ceremony okay? Yeah, that's what I thought.

(H/T GottaLaff, TPC)


UPDATE (4/11/09 10am): The NOM pussies have pulled the audition videos from YouTube claiming copyright infringement! HA! It's too late, bigots. It's out there. Everyone knows it's out there. I'm leaving it up just to see that sad, sad notice when pushing play.

I'm also glad the rubes are having an "open and honest" dialogue on their blog by rejecting probably 95% of comments they disagree with during their moderation. I knew it would happen, so I wrote a very respectful comment asking to please provide me with the information or guide me to something on the NOM website to verify the claim that a California doctor had to choose between his faith and his job because of gay marriage. I got no answer and my comment was never published. What a surprise.

The sad part for them (but good for us) is that everyone else knows it as well so the commenting generally stopped before it even started. Pretty sad to get a total of 14 comments over 5 posts for a group that claims to be two million strong for marriage.

The Rick Warren Issue

Yesterday it was reported that Rick Warren was chosen to give the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration. At first I thought it was a joke or a misreporting.

Surely there are better choices than the anti-choice Rick Warren who compared abortion to the Holocaust. There must be a better pick than the anti-gay rights Rick Warren who, athough admitting that divorce is a bigger threat to marriage than gay marriage, still compared it to incest and pedophilia while hiding behind the excuse of the "redefinition" of marrige (which is fodder for a completely different post altogether). The man who said that stem-cell research is "non negotiable" for Evangelicals when deciding on their presidential choice couldn't be the guy that Obama chose to speak at his inauguration, could it?

It looks like it is true, and for a moment I felt a little better after reading this:

...the decision to get involved with Saddleback was actually not Obama's. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, run by the House and Senate, put together the program for the swearing-in ceremony. Congress, not Obama, invited Warren...

What the hell is that all about? Great, so Obama doesn't have a choice on who gets to give the invocation at his own inauguration ceremony?

Or does he? Why is the New York Times online reporting it this way a full day later?

Barack Obama has selected the Rev. Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor and author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, a role that positions Mr. Warren to succeed Billy Graham as the nation’s pre-eminent minister and reflects the generational changes in the evangelical Christian movement.

...Mr. Obama’s inauguration program, for Jan. 20, was announced Wednesday by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Celebrations.

Inauguration programs follow a traditional outline but also allow a president-elect to put his stamp on the proceedings and set the tone for his administration.

The choice of Mr. Warren, pastor of a megachurch in Orange County, Calif., is an olive branch to conservative Christian evangelicals. Mr. Warren is an outspoken opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage — litmus-test issues for Christian conservatives. In fact, his selection set off a round of criticism by gay rights groups angered by his support for California’s ban on same-sex marriages.

So did Obama decide on Warren or what is decided for him? Did the "release" of this information precede Obama's knowledge of it in an attempt to corner him into accepting the program? And why haven't we heard a statement from the transition team? Or is the quesiton even being asked - too much Blagojevichin' to worry about Warren, you know.

I have mixed feelings about this. If this is a political game to placate the Religious Right and try to win them over, then it won't work. Even though Obama did get twice the number of votes from young Evangelicals that Kerry received in 2004 he still received about 25% of their vote overall, the same as Kerry. The other issue I fear is the "what have you done for me lately" effect. Sure, the Religious Right will tolerate Obama... for about as long as Warren's invocation lasts. But unless he's going to do a 180 on Pro-Choice and stem-cell research, I don't think he'll gain any new supporters, and he'd certainly lose more than he'd gain.

On the flip side, what does the choice of Warren say about what Obama or the Democratic party thinks of it's Progessive supporters. Right now, they are majorly pissed off about the Warren issue.

"My blood pressure is really high right now," said Rev. Chuck Currie, minister at Parkrose Community United Church of Christ in Portland, Oregon. "Rick Warren does some really good stuff and there are some areas that I have admired his ability to build bridges between evangelicals and mainline religious and political figures... but he is also very established in the religious right and his position on social issues like gay rights, stem cell research and women's rights are all out of the mainstream and are very much opposed to the progressive agenda that Obama ran on. I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage with the president that day."

**********************************************

..."Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance," read a statement from People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert. "He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion."

**********************************************

..."Let me get right to the point," Joe Solomnese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a harsh letter to the president-elect, "Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans."

Does someone get to review what Warren will say in his invocation before the event? Will he insert some unapproved passage and take a shot at the LGBT community? Will he compare Pro-choicers to Hitler? Probably not. But there's always that slim chance...

To those who aren't especially religious (including yours truly), does it really matter? Just because Warren is there doesn't mean Obama is all of a sudden adopting Warren's policy views. And I think we're pretty safe to assume that Obama is still in favor of the separation of church and state. Otherwise, we should just be pissed off that there is an invocation and a benediction to begin with. We should be angry that religious observance is part of the inauguration ceremony at all, shouldn't we? Or is that just a formality and therefore okay?

We take what we want out of the words of these people, don't we? If we are in agreement with them, it is of a secular nature. If we happen to disagree with something, it's based on their religious beliefs and don't pertain to us. Yes, Warren has said some pretty shitty things, but that's not to say he hasn't done any good. And let's not forget that Rev. Joseph Lowery, who was a founding leader of the Civil Rights Movement will be there as well. Does Lowery's benediction cancel out Warren's invocation? Does it supercede it?

And finally, maybe in Barack Obama we really did get someone who is doing what he said he would do.

Lee Stranahan:

Apparently, Barack Obama meant what he said about our politics being too small for our problems.

...I don't understand how anyone who listened to Obama during the campaign would be shocked that Obama lets Warren give the invocation. It's vintage Obama. It does not signal agreement with Warren's political positions, some of which are clearly at odds with Obama's. Warren isn't making policy or even giving a sermon. He's saying a prayer and then possibly dancing later at some inaugural parties. If anything, it's the possibility of this dancing that should be deeply troubling to all Americans.

...Rick Warren felt some of this same heat when he invited Barack Obama to speak at his church on World Aids Day. Conservatives railed against Warren for legitimizing Obama. People with different political opinions aren't supposed to come together in anything but a shouting match.

...There's something bigger at play here and you can't say Obama didn't warn you. He talked about reaching out, about expanding our politics and that crazy bastard actually meant it. Nobody on the left or right quite knows what to make of it. We want to cram Obama into our old, divisive, two toned ideological and political frame and if he doesn't fit, we'll attack him too. Attacking is what we're used to doing.

But in the long run this new politics benefits us all. Ironically, it benefits the minorities and marginalized and ill-treated the most. I know this may be hard for many to see right now but the truth is that this sort of symbol is what America needs. Not seeing just Warren on stage or just Lowery but seeing both of them of there at once.

Obama said it in the abstract time and again during the campaign. Now he's showing us. Seeing the things that Pastor Rick Warren and Reverend Joseph Lowery have in common is more important than seeing the things that separate them. America needs to see that. It's a step down the road where a majority of us see the things that straight Americans in love want are the same things that gay Americans in love want, too.

Lee Stranahan is a better man than I. My first instinct is definitely not "do unto others." I think I eventually get there most of the time, and not so quickly. But I do agree with his idea that attacking is what we are used to doing, so maybe we should keep an open mind about things. Case in point, now it seems that the Religious Right is angered over Warren's participation in the inauguration.

So who knows? Maybe he'll back out, although I doubt it. Just as I doubt Obama would change his mind about having him there.



UPDATE (12:20pm): Obama press conference where he is asked about the Warren choice.



(H/T Paddy)

Also, more Stranahan:

If opposing same-sex marriage but being on record for equal rights is homophobic then Obama, Clinton, and Edwards are all homophobic. I can think someone is wrong about gay marriage without calling them a homophobe. Throwing around that word doesn't help and it's generally unprovable.

UPDATE II (3:10pm): Thom Hartmann. Wow.