David Corn

religious zealots are dragging us back to the dark ages.

DC,

"It's one thing to sit at the table with Warren and discuss how best to alleviate poverty; it's another to enhance his status. "

Spot on.

I read this somewhere:

Rick "Gluttony isn't a sin" Warren?

lol

RIck Warren on gays, their immaturity and desire for multiple partners

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0spPzgma6Q

"Whisky - Tango - Foxtrot?"

As a 51 year old (gay) single man (who has HIV and lots of other things on my mind, like wearing oxygen 24/7), I don't hold much concern or interest, personally, in "gay marriage" issues. Not anymore. There was a time when I did. My time for expending my energies on that is past.

But the fact of the matter is this: I am not a pedophile. I don't know any gay men who are, either. Nor do I know any given to incest, either.

In other words, he fabricates lies.

He does so, because he's HATEFUL about it, and CLOAKS it in the DECEPTION of being a "Christian value" of his, etc.

There's no point in pointing out to the likes of him that Jesus, God's Son, never said anything against it. Nor that those same Leviticus Laws "against" homosexuality also forbid sex with a woman during her menstrual cycle, stoning to death for fornication, not eating pork or shrimp, and the list goes on and on.

As is typical with the modern-day "Christian" religion, they all pick and choose exactly and only what they want, and ignore the rest.

It is for these reasons of hatefulness, and lack of true integrity, as listed above, that Obama should have NEVER chosen him.

I cannot imagine what he was thinking.

This is not the first of Obama's choices I found questionable, I doubt it will be the last. I too was profoundly pissed off.

I wandered around my favorite sites, and read a few things that were thought provoking in regard to this particular choice. And I mulled.

Then I watched Olberman, all the while my feelings were evolving, each new take on the issue adding or subtracting an element or two. Then I watched your interview with Rachel Maddow and by the end, I formed an opinion and a take of my own on the issue.

I think it completely possible that Obama considered that by chosing Warren he would put the man in the National spotlight. He would be quoted. Newsclips would be replayed. The American public would get to see, up close and at prime time, a concentrated view of what Warren represents. At the same time he will be giving a National platform to gay and lesbian groups that have not had a National spotlight in the past. Lastly I considered that inclusiveness is what Obama has promised us.

Sometimes it truly is "Better the Devil you SEE".

Leaked Obama Transcript Explains Rick Warren Decision (with Draft of Warren's Invocation)

http://www.alternet.org/election08/114327/

(satire)

Obama is turning out to be just another neocon bait & switch fraud. Backstab with middlefinger on top to us all. We need to stop this media run election system that always forces us to choose between 2 versions of the same brand. I was always suspicious of Obama because the media promoted him. Can you say "manchurian candidate"?

I was not for Obama but did vote for him - and I'm disgusted at this choice. Warren has esentially called gays and lesbians criminals - pedophilia is a crime.

Guess what! I'm not gay. I just don't want to go to Warren's church, and Obama has given this man a place of honor, a man who want's to control others, to yank the heart and soul out of those who are different from him, and replace those hearts and souls with clones of his own. How dare he?

For that matter, I'm a woman and am not seeing enought women in his group.

Those of you who backed Obama from the beginning should keep on protesting very openly and loudly - I never have really trusted him and am starting to fear what he is willing to do in order to appear to be "reaching across the aisle."

The last little bit, the icing on the cake, is the man is just repulsive - someone said it above. Gluttony is a sin, and the man is a veritable pig.

Please please figure out a way to make Obama change his mind - you'll have to find someone he values to make the point, because he sure doesn't value any of us out here.

Katrina's Hidden Race War

the gunmen yelled, "Get him! Get that nigger!"

http://tinyurl.com/3j5e6g

I'm a young heterosexual woman who is appalled by Obama's decision to use Warren. Warren is against both gay and women's rights. This choice is divisive, not at all inclusive -- certainly not a good choice for someone who wants to unite us.

Some years ago, I was asked to give an invocation at a company convention, the theme of which was "True North", as in having a moral compass. So I talked about a 17th Century Japanese Zen Monk, and how he was always a truly genuine, sincere person, someone whose example anyone could aspire to regardless of race, creed, sex, sexual orientation, and on and on. I made no mention at all of religion, just uttering the fellow's name, as just another human being, albeit an evolved one.

When I called the home office, and asked one of the event coordinators his opinion, he criticized it, saying that I never used the word Jesus. As if Jesus has a copyright on ethics.
Based on what we've seen in this country in the past few decades of war, bigotry, etc. Maybe it is time to really invoke the 1st Amendment and get God out of politics, not that the messes we have are God's fault (whether or not he or she exists), but rather they are OUR responsibility alone.

For this reason, Obama's choice clearly violates the intent of the 1st amendment. But given the prevarication of Obama's formless "Change we can believe in", what else can you expect? It is up to the people to hold him accountable to the 1st Amendment, and the Constitution and Bill of Rights, which has not happened at all under the Bush dictatorship.

To all who say, give him a chance, I respond, don't give him any slack, since the Right won't and in the tug of war the country is in spiritually, economically and politically, giving him slack will result in further deterioration of civil society.

For more on this, watch Zeitgeist Addendum on google video.

We should cut Obama no slack on this whatsoever. We are the WE in "Yes, WE can" -- and when Obama is out of line, then, yes, we CAN call him out -- and we should raise a ruckus over this, not only with Obama's team, but also with Warren, to let him know that even if Obama welcomes him, WE emphatically DON'T want him and his bigotry at the first legitimate inauguration of the new century.

POISONOUS LEGACY

http://www.bushflash.com/pl_lo.html

Rick Warren: "I love Muslims . . . I happen to love Gays and Straights"

http://www.juancole.com/

Rick Warren Likens Gays To Pizza

“Just because I like pizza it doesn’t mean I should marry it”

In an interview with Ann Curry on NBC’s Dateline, Evangelist Preacher, Rick Warren, who is set to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration, equated gays getting married to eating pizza everyday.

“Mr. Warren’s relating gays to pedophiles, incest and gay marriage to his incessant craving of sex with women he was not married to caught me a little off guard.,” said Ms Curry, “But after the camera stopped filming he went on to make the comparison of gays to pizza, I must say, I was startled.”

http://steveyoungonpolitics.com/rick-warren-likens-gays-to-pizza/

Rick Warren may really love everyone, but not enough to be a proponent of equal rights for all. He actively campaigned against prop 8, actively campaigned against what should be a right for all at birth. We should, as a nation, be way beyond this crap. So what if Warren isn't all bad and is concerned about some worthy causes? It's still indefensible that this pastor has been chosen for anything on what will be a historic moment in time. This dude agrees with James Dobson on many things -- Jeez!

Off subject, I do love Obama's pick for Secretary of Labor. Finally, a real progressive in the cabinet.

I'm getting a little leery of Obama's blanket "inclusivity"...frankly, this is idealogical war. He has let that evangelical vampire into his house and now he is slowly being rendered powerless to the freakish RW religious element.

Inclusiveness is fine Barack, but even then a line has to be drawn. Protect your own interests and those of your allies, first and foremost.

""He actively campaigned against prop 8""
...ontheverge

hold on there - being AGAINST prop 8 = being IN FAVOR of gay marriage.
i think it is more likely that warren campaigned FOR prop 8.

Neomonkey says Rick Warren is an "evangelical vampire"! It is really hard to infer what you mean by that. I could certainly believe that you meant he is a vampire but it doesn't make sense for you to say that. Likewise when a Jewish person compares an event or political issue to the holocaust I doesn't make sense that the Jew means that the magnitude is equal. They are using the word for a very loose comparison.

We all use words loosely. None of us could have everything we say stand up to everyone else's interpretation. I suspect that Rick Warren did not mean that homosexuality is morally bad in the same way as incest or pedophilia are.

Secondly, I think David is wrong that anyone who has a fringe belief should not have an important symbolic position. Or did he mean that fringe beliefs against gay people are the only ones that shouldn't be tolerated. Of course it is doubtful that he meant either point but you know he was very unclear about what fringe beliefs are allowed and what beliefs are not allowed. My point is that we all have fringe beliefs. Some people believe that their beliefs are all normal just because they presume that others hold their beliefs.

The concept of a constitutional United States is clearly dead and all that's left to do is to hold the funeral that begins with the inauguration of the next conflicted-criminal who shall conclude and extend the crimes of the former occupants of the tarnished office that is now the seat of naked-fiat power.

The Stars & Stripes Have Changed Their Spots

http://rense.com/general84/stars.htm

I do think Rick Warren is using offensive language to talk about the issue of gay marrage, but I have noticed that often when people talk about gay marriage they say something offensive. And I am sometimes shocked at how offensive people can be when they are trying to be polite. I really think we should cut Rick Warren some slack just like we would cut our neighbor some slack. I really don't want to live in a society were every word that we say gets held against us. I think it leads to too much conformity.

For example I appreciate it when Pete Stark speaks. Though he is always saying things that are embarrassing for Democrats at least you know he is saying what he believes and someone in congress is not conforming to popular culture (admittedly I am only aware of some of what he says). Like he doesn't believe in God. He is the only legislator of the Congress to admit this. There really should more people in Congress that are honest to the public about what they believe.

I am angry, sad, depressed and disgusted about President Elect Obama’s decision to ask Rick Warren to speak at his inauguration.

A man that states that gay people marrying is at the same level as incest, bestiality and raping children.

This should of stopped the decision to have him honored, in a celebration in America, where the first mixed-race person to become the President of the United States will be celebrated worldwide.

I understand that President Elect Obama’s belief is that gays should not be treated equally when it comes to marriage, he has made that clear, but he has never said such insidious things that Rick Warren has, and for him to be given the respect and the opportunity to be held up, by our next President, as someone worthy of respect, is deplorable.

This may have been one of the first moves that President Elect Obama has taken, that will allow the Republicans to take back the Majority and the White House in 2012.

When this happens, we will once again, have no one to blame but the Democratic Party themselves.

I heard an interview with Steven Waldman's on the radio this morning.

The topic, Rick Warren and Obama's decision to have him speak at his inauguration.

Speak?

I did a quick search for what an “invocation” is.

Wikipedia gave me this: “An invocation (from the Latin verb invocare "to call on, invoke") may take the form of: Supplication or prayer. A form of possession, Command or conjuration. Self-identification with certain spirits.”

So it is a religious thing.

I wonder who Mr. Warren will invoke?

Jesus, the Creator, a Higher Power, the Universe, the All Knowing?

How about Allah?

Somehow I think Jesus will be the only name we hear.

Showing people in America or all other faiths, or none at all, they are not welcome and they are not worthy. Only when they believe in this “Jesus” will they be equal.

I understand many religious people have been invited by both Democrats and Republicans to provide the invocation…but have any of the Democrats had someone who believes gay marriage is the same as incest?

I doubt it.

How about someone who does not believe in evolution?

I doubt that also.

Obama not only supports the ever so abused “Faith based initiatives”, those abused mainly by George W. Bush, he intends on expanding them, which will make his new friend, Rick Warren very happy.

Now I know I have heard that Rick Warren had invited Obama to speak at his church.

Did you catch the apologist move there?

If Obama refused, he most likely would have lost the election.

I guess when the Republicans didn’t show up for the debate put on by minority groups; one being black, the other being gay, it didn’t seem to affect anyone’s moral compass about these people.

Equal rights my ass!

I have also heard how wonderful Rick Warren is at getting his fellow fundamentalist Christians to pay attention to more of the things their Jesus was presumed to; the poor.

Well, the Christians surely do not have a monopoly on helping the poor, unless you consider their tax-exempt status where the government (tax payers) gives them money to spend however they see fit, “helping”.

I understand that Mr. Warren also wants his cohorts to focus more of their attention on the environment and preserving it.

That’s odd, hasn’t George W. Bush, up to this day, been trying to, and successfully, pass laws that do the complete opposite regarding the environment and animals that may soon be extinct.

Well I guess we need not pay attention to the animals, apparently the bible explains that they have no soul, humans can do whatever they want with and too them, and you still get into heaven.

Not to mention the bees. You know, the ones Mrs. Palin said were a waste to study, not realizing, for the most part, without the bees and other insects, there will be no human race.

Now comes my favorite reason why Christians who seem to be invited to and are quite connected politically, allowing them to make changes that affect mine and everyone else’s life on the earth, while whining about being martyrs….the movement George W. Bush, along with his Christian friends, wants to make it legal to deny anyone medical care, even if they are dying, if the medical provider believes it is against their religion.

Huh?

Wasn’t it just within the last few years all these Religious Right folks were up in arms because there were Muslims that didn’t want to pick up certain people in their cab.

I guess refusing a ride is more important than saving a life.

I find the fundamentalist Christians, a.k.a the majority of the Republican Party and those who claim to be Conservative, (you know, the ones who spend money like drunk whores, not on the American people of course) to be a disgrace to mankind, and I believe they are ruining not only my life, but my country, and the whole world.

I believe they are running with this blind passion, and nothing really matters because they see light at the end of their little, distorted, racist, bigoted tunnel….the Rapture.

Wow….imagine going through life, finding someone to lead the way for you.

Someone who you choose understands a book, rewritten many times over and translated from many languages, to tell you how to live.

And your reward…heaven….a place where everyone knows your name like in the sitcom “Cheers”.

I used to cry whenever I heard the song that went with that sitcom, and to think, now living in Boston, a five minute walk from the place “Cheers” was loosely based on…I’ve never been, to make friends where everyone will know my name, I came to a conclusion a long time ago, that being delusional does not make one very happy.

Much like religious people who are fundamentalist, following the “rules” where everything is “black or white”, (not connoting skin color here), pointing their fingers at everyone else’s fault’s, while we all know this usually leads to deceitfulness and hypocrisy.

So, back to Rick Warren.

I believe he, and those like him, are a danger to me, my country, yes America, and to the world as we know it.

Obama has made a grave move by allowing this man to be present at his inauguration.

The next time someone is “gay bashed” or refused the morning after-pill after being raped, or is 19 more fundamentalists from another country fly planes into a building, or if we are nuked….who will I blame?

Barrack Obama.

When the world sees that he supports respects and honors a man like Rick Warren, it shows that, in fact, there is a “holy war”, no matter how subtle, overt or political it may be.

For Steven Waldman to back Obama’s decision, I no longer believe he is intelligent enough to write about our Founding Fathers and their relationship with religion….therefore, I will stop read his book, ‘Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America’ and place it where it belongs; in the trash.

@as_if!:

I'm referring the mythological idea regarding vampires. It's said that if you invite a vampire into your house that you will then be powerless against that vampire.

Extrapolate that analogy to Obama and all that Rick Warren represents as a religious figure and invitation into Obama's shining moment.

It's all about symbolism, man.

just for the record, it was ed who failed to grasp the symbolism of neomonkey's vampire analogy, not me (as_if!).
frankly, i believe that they are all literal vampires, not just symbolically.

Ah yes, my apologies as_if!, I had a lapse in space-time judgment.

Ed is indeed the one I intended to enlighten on the fable of the soul-sucking Evangelical Vampire.

I found it fitting that within a short time of the Rick Warren announcement, we learn that that the sponsors of Prop 8 will now seek to invalidate thousands of gay unions performed in California.

Yes, Obama, it's the symbolism, the symbolism...which will surely come back to bite you in the arse.

It's really not that complicated.

Pedophilia is an abnormal sexual practice (in our culture).
Incest is an abnormal sexual practice (in our culture)..
Homosexuality is an abnormal sexual practice.

That is how they are related.

Pedophilia is a criminal offense.
Homosexuality is not a criminal offense (in our culture).

I'm not interested in your brainwashing campaign to convince everyone to normalize abnormal behaviors.

I'm not a christian, but Rick Warren seems like a nice decent normal guy. A lot more so than say...that smarmy freak Rachel Meadows.

You're not going to win by trying to demonize nice normal people. That's why Obama is president now, he realizes that. You should be as open-minded is, you're hatred and small-mindedness blinds you.