The Cellar - You’re Likable Enough, Gay People

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You’re Likable Enough, Gay People

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Warren’s defamation of gay people illustrates why, as does our president-elect’s rationalization of it. When Obama defends Warren’s words by calling them an example of the “wide range of viewpoints” in a “diverse and noisy and opinionated” America, he is being too cute by half. He knows full well that a “viewpoint” defaming any minority group by linking it to sexual crimes like pedophilia is unacceptable.

It is even more toxic in a year when that group has been marginalized and stripped of its rights by ballot initiatives fomenting precisely such fears. “You’ve got to give them hope” was the refrain of the pioneering 1970s gay politician Harvey Milk, so stunningly brought back to life by Sean Penn on screen this winter. Milk reminds us that hope has to mean action, not just words.

By the historical standards of presidential hubris, Obama’s disingenuous defense of his tone-deaf invitation to Warren is nonetheless a relatively tiny infraction. It’s no Bay of Pigs. But it does add an asterisk to the joyous inaugural of our first black president. It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history.

Since he’s not about to rescind the invitation, what happens next? For perspective, I asked Timothy McCarthy, a historian who teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and an unabashed Obama enthusiast who served on his campaign’s National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Leadership Council. He responded via e-mail on Christmas Eve.

After noting that Warren’s role at the inauguration is, in the end, symbolic, McCarthy concluded that “it’s now time to move from symbol to substance.” This means Warren should “recant his previous statements about gays and lesbians, and start acting like a Christian.”

McCarthy added that it’s also time “for President-elect Obama to start acting on the promises he made to the LGBT community during his campaign so that he doesn’t go down in history as another Bill Clinton, a sweet-talking swindler who would throw us under the bus for the sake of political expediency.” And “for LGBT folks to choose their battles wisely, to judge Obama on the content of his policy-making, not on the character of his ministers.”

*Bold mine.

This article brings up some really good points and a note of caution that Obama may already be starting to waffle, backpeddle or modify some of his pre-election stances.

It makes me happy every time a special interest group complains they are not being catered to.

Here is Time's take on the same issue.

The Problem for Gays with Rick Warren — and Obama

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About three years ago, a reporter at Fortune asked Rick Warren, the successful pastor whom the President-elect has asked to pray at his Inauguration, about homosexuality. "I'm no homophobic guy," Warren said. His proof? He has dined with gays; he has a church "full of people who are caring for gays who are dying of AIDS"; he believes that "in the hierarchy of evil ... homosexuality is not the worst sin." So gays get to eat — sometimes even with Rick Warren! Then they get to die of AIDS — possibly under the care of Rick Warren's congregants. And when they go to hell, they won't be quite as far down in Satan's pit as other evildoers.

But Warren did have a message of hope for gays: they can magically become heterosexuals. (He didn't explain how, but I suspect he thinks praying really hard would do it, as if most of us who grew up gay and evangelical hadn't tried that every night as teenagers.) Homosexuality, Pastor Warren explained in the virtually content-free language of the dogmatist, is "not the natural way." And then he went right for the ick factor, the way middle-school boys do: "Certain body parts are meant to fit together."

More recently, Warren told Beliefnet that he thinks allowing a gay couple to marry is similar to allowing "a brother and sister to be together and call that marriage." He then helpfully added that he's also "opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage." The reporter, who may have been a little surprised, asked, "Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?" "Oh, I do," Warren immediately answered. I wish the reporter had asked the next logical follow-up: If gays are like child-sex offenders, shouldn't we incarcerate them?

Rick Warren may occasionally sound more open-minded than Jerry Falwell, another plump Evangelical who once played a prominent role in U.S. politics. But he's not. Gays and lesbians are angry that Barack Obama has honored Warren, but they shouldn't be surprised. Obama has proved himself repeatedly to be a very tolerant, very rational-sounding sort of bigot. He is far too careful and measured a man to say anything about body parts fitting together or marriage being reserved for the nonpedophilic, but all the same, he opposes equality for gay people when it comes to the basic recognition of their relationships. He did throughout his campaign, one that featured appearances by Donnie McClurkin, a Christian entertainer who preaches that homosexuals can become heterosexuals.

I find it ironic that those who profess to be "accepting" of alternate lifestyles seem not to accept those with opposing views.

Intolerance of intolerance is not intolerant.

Don't confuse lack of support with intolerance.

Not sure if that was directed at me or Ibby, but I am certainly not.

Lack of support for human rights for a group of people is intolerance of those people, as far as i'm concerned.

I don't buy the, "If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem" bullshit.
For example, the people that actively worked to pass proposition 8 in CA are intolerant, but those that did nothing for or against, can't be automatically labeled intolerant.

Now you're running into the idea of moral absolutes. If you see something as always wrong, irregardless of the situation with no "it depends" gray area, then it is easy to understand how people who recognize something as a moral absolute can equate inaction as equal to or worse than normal opposition. "Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men." (name that movie!).

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Originally Posted by Bullitt (Post 517194)

....then it is easy to understand how people who recognize something as a moral absolute can equate inaction as equal to or worse than normal opposition.

Oh I understand them, I just don't agree with them.
Nor do I let them call me, or people that feel the way I do, intolerant, unchallenged.
I don't expect to change their opinion, just telling them they are not changing mine.

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Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce (Post 517197)

Agreed.

I wasn't saying complete neutrals ARE intolerant, i'm just saying that people who 'dont accept' people who really are intolerant arent the intolerant ones, because intolerance of intolerance isn't intolerant. If youre intolerant of people who really don't care, youre just kinda a jerk.

Oh, so now we're "jerks" because we don't support your friend's campaigns?
I guess that makes you intolerant.