Richard Cohen's Outstanding Editorial

I have not always agreed with Richard Cohen, but today he wrote a really excellent piece in today's Washington Post. I know the media is trying to brush this Warren off as a little gay issue, but I believe it could be more. It could potentially be very damaging for Obama. Cohen's column illustrates tha this isn't just about gays and lesbians. It's about their family members, who are also offended by someone comparing their brother, their sister, their child, to a pedophile.

"I'm opposed to redefinition of a 5,000-year definition of marriage," Warren told Beliefnet.com's Steve Waldman.

"I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage."

Waldman asked, "Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?"

"Oh, I do," said Warren.

There you have the thinking of the man Obama has chosen above all other religious figures to represent him in this most solemn moment. He likens my sister's relationship -- three children, five grandchildren, so loving as to be envied and so conventional as to be boring -- to incest or polygamy....I can understand Obama's desire to embrace constituencies that have rejected him.

Evangelicals are in that category and Warren is an important evangelical leader with whom, Obama said, "we're not going to agree on every single issue." He went on to say, "We can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans." Sounds nice.

But what we do not "hold in common" is the dehumanization of homosexuals. What we do not hold in common is the belief that gays are perverts who have chosen their sexual orientation on some sort of whim. What we do not hold in common is the
exaltation of ignorance that has led and will lead to discrimination and violence.

Finally, what we do not hold in common is the categorization of a civil rights issue -- the rights of gays to be treated equally -- as some sort of cranky cultural difference. For that we need moral leadership, which, on this occasion, Obama has failed to provide. For some people, that's nothing to celebrate.

The party's off.

That last full paragraph is the crux of the matter, and the reason the Rick Warren issue has touched off such indignation. Obama is essentially asking us to acknowledge that the humanity of Gays is negotiable. That Gays as full members of American society, as equal members of the human race, is somehow "just an opinion," no more and no less valid than those who compare them to pedophiles. Barack Obama wants us as a nation to acknowledge that there are two sides to every issue, even on our civil rights. He wants us to tolerate intolerance, as he is about to do from the highest office in the land.

My letter to Barack Obama's Transition Team

To the Transition Team for Barack Obama,

Really? Who thought it was a good idea to invite Pastor Warren to give the invocation at the Inauguration? Seriously, I am a liberal progressive who gave money to Obama, who volunteered for Obama, and voted for Obama, and what do I get as one of the first acts by Obama is a slap in the face. i understand that the President-elect is trying to reach out and change the tone of Washington, and I support that. But you can do that with an invitation to Rick Warren to visit the White House. You can have a very public debate where you invite Warren to give his thoughts, and someone of the Gay community to offer their counter-point. What you don't do is give Warren the invocation. You mean there is no liberal progressive man of faith you could have asked? Would it not have been nice for a change to show that there are people of faith who actually are liberal and progressive?

Why do we always defer to the evangelicals? Why does the invocation always get done by an evangelical? How about showing some inclusion of those who are always left on the outside instead of again pandering to the white evangelicals?

I understand that Rick Warren is supposed to be some lovable fat man with a big heart, but he is also a bigot; plain and simple. He dresses it up, and hides it in platitudes that are supposed to show he really cares, but in the end he is a bigot.

As proof I submit this video recorded yesterday by Pastor Warren:http://www.saddlebackfamily.com/blogs/newsandviews/index.html?contentid=1723

In the new video, Warren accuses gays of "hate speech," of launching "hateful attacks" against him, and he then says that gay and lesbian Americans have "Christ-ophobia," a clear effort to mock the term "homophobia." He goes on to explain that gays are "afraid of any Christian," suggesting that gay and lesbian Americans - gay and lesbian Obama voters - are not Christians. He then goes on to call gays criticizing him "evil." All this from a man who compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia, and who explicitly bans "unrepentant gays" from his church membership.

Really? This is the man who will step into the mantle of America's Pastor because you all decided to kick a large portion of your supporters in the groin.

Does Obama agree with Rick Warren that gay and lesbian Americans have been "evil" and "hateful" in this affair?

Does Obama agree with Rick Warren’s dehumanization of homosexuals?

Does Obama agree with Rick Warren’s characterization of homosexuality to incest and pedophilia?

Does Obama aprove of Rick Warren’s ban on "unrepentant gays" from his church membership?

Does Obama agree that gay Americans are not Christians?

Does Obama agree that gays have "Christ-ophobia"?

I would really like to know. For eight long years I have had to take the turd burgers that President Bush and Dick Cheney have forced upon the American public. Inauguration day was supposed to be a day of hope, a day of change. It was a day for liberals and progressives to take heart, but no, for cheap political points you decided to spit on many of your supporters.
There is only two forms of bigotry that are allowed today in America, bigotry against Muslims and Gays. This is not to say there is no other bigotry or racists, but those bigots have to do it on the sly or behind closed doors. The only bigotry that can be done in the open is to say hurtful and slanderous things about Muslims and Gays. This is why Rick Warren can say out loud that the marriage of Gays and Lesbians is the equivalent of incest, child rape and polygamy, and not suffer any consequence.

Would it be different if he said that the union of Obama's parents was the equivalent of incest, or that it was a sin versus God, or the equivalent of rape? These were all the same things said by men like Warren in the last 50 years. There were all the same arguments based on interpretations of the bible.

So is it okay to be a bigot as long as it's directed towards gays?

You know a lot of bigots came out against Obama during the election, are you going to invite one of their representatives to give a speech in the name of inclusiveness?

I am not completely against some of the things that Rick Warren has done, nor do I think that as President, Barack Obama should never speak with Pastor Warren, but this was not the time or the forum. You screwed up, and you were hurtful for no good purpose. It did not need to be done, and now cannot be rectified, but Obama should apologize. We have gone 8 years with a man who never once apologized for any of his mistakes, a real change would be to have a
President who actually steps up when he made a mistake.

Thank you