Are gay-marriage backers making a mistake worrying about Rick Warren?

Are California gay-rights activists making a mistake by protesting Rick Warren's role in the Obama inauguration? Bob Ostertag at Huffington Post wonders why activists want to be the odd men out at the gala event -- and whether the obsessive focus on Proposition 8 makes sense:

How is it that queers became the odd ones out at such a momentous turning point in history? By pushing an agenda of stupid issues like gay marriage. "Gay marriage" turns the real issues of equal rights for sexual minorities upside down and paints us into a reactionary little corner of our own making. Yes, married people get special privileges denied to others. Denied not to just gays and lesbians, but to all others. Millions of straight people remain unmarried, and for a huge variety of reasons, from mothers whose support networks do not include their children's fathers, to hipsters who can't relate to religious institutions. We could be making common cause with them. We could be fighting for equal rights for everyone, not just gays and lesbians, but for all unmarried people. In the process we would leave religious institutions to define marriage however their members see fit. That's how you win at politics, isn't it? You build principled coalitions that add up to a majority, and try not to hand potent mobilizing issues to your opposition in the process. We have done the opposite. Instead of tearing down the walls of privilege enjoyed by the nuclear family, we are demanding our own place at the married couples' table (leaving all those other unmarried people out in the cold).

Warren spoke on the issue in a talk this weekend in Long Beach. The Times' Tina Daunt has Hollywood's take.

--Shelby Grad

Comments

[Jerry Johnson]

Such a mean spirited article! Perspective is a good thing! When it is your own marriage up for the vote of the people.....you act differently. Gay Marriage is not a "stupid Issue" when it's your home and your family. It is also good to remember...it is not something that is being asked for....it is in fact something that is being TAKEN AWAY for those already married granted by the Supreme Court based on the Constitution of California. Marriage is not owned by any religious institution. Everyone has receive their marriage license from the State County Recorder Office before a marriage can take place in a Church....not the other way around. I commend all those making noise to protect civil rights anywhere at anytime. Articles like yours are to be commended for keeping the cause active and moving. Thank you so very much.

[Kevin]

If this was just about his opposition to gay marriage that would be one thinga dn the author maybe correct. But Rev. Warren goes way beyond that to equating gay and lesbian families with pedophiles, incest, etc.. Not just slight difference of opinion about Prop. 8- shear bigotry on the part of Rev. Warren

[mrclmind]

This is so much more than Proposition 8. This is a man who excludes all gays from membership in his church, who equates gays with pedophiles (who by definition are rapists) and those who practice incest. This is a man who by all accounts advocates using the bible to strip away all rights of gay Americans. It doesn't make any sense to you that gays, who worked tirelessly for Obamas campaign and gave a great deal of money to get him elected are saying "Thanks, but no thanks" to that kind of man taking the spiritual lead at the inauguration? Please. If it were happening to you, might you think a bit differently? I think so.

[dl]

is it that Bob Osterbag is single...

someone should inform him since he hasn't read the blogs enough

most people are offended by his pedophilia and bestiality analogies...

for most of the country it has nothing to do with marriage...it has to do with backwards bigoted statements being rewarded by Obama

the same analogies they made in the 50's to inter racial marriage and relations...someone may want to inform the President ...those statements back then received the scorn of men like Bobby and john kennedy...they did not receive one of the highest honors the President of the uNited States can bestow on any religious figure.

Ostertag might want to date.

[Mike Tidmus]

It is not only queers that have been offended by Warren. With his five non-negotiables: a woman’s choice, stem-cell research, cloning, queer rights and euthanasia, Warren has offended queers, women, Jews, Americans living with AIDS, medical researchers, science teachers, non-believers, people with terminal illnesses, people who practice a brand of Christianity with more humanity than the radical religious right, and the list could go on and on.

According to Pop-Pastor Warren, Jews will never get to Heaven and non-believers should not be allowed to hold public office.

Obama's insensitivity (or ignorance) is incredible. When Warren begins the Invocation on 20 January, Americans should turn their backs on his sugar-coated hate.

[Felix]

Uncle Tom lives.

[Bob]

Most gays do support equal rights for everyone. Currently, everyone in America equally has the right *not* to marry.

But a portion of the population, gay and lesbian people, don't have the same right to marry enjoyed by the rest of the population. They are excluded from upwards of 1400 benefits and rights afforded to married couples. Same-sex couples who have lived together in loving relationships of mutual emotional and financial interdependence for 50 years have no rights when it comes to medical, end of life, and estate decision-making on each other's behalf. Indeed, such a couple has less rights than Britney Spears would have had when she married that guy at a Las Vegas drive through a few years ago, a marriage that lasted some 50 hours.

This article is so uninformed it amazes me it has been allowed to appear in the LA Times.

[Steven L.]

Mike Tidmus notes that Warren believes that Jews will never get to heaven (as long as they don't accept Jesus). And he thinks that's some kind of "hate."

I've got news for you, Mike: Virtually all Christian theologians believe that. It's central to Christian theology that you have to accept Jesus to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (which Jews have not done). And Jews understand that's what Christians believe.

If you asked a Jewish rabbi if Jesus was the Son of God and was Resurrected, the rabbi will say no. Is that a message of hate directed at Christians? No.

Each religion believes that it is the sole path to God. I'm sorry if you consider that ipso facto "hate" directed at all other religions--it's not.

The only pastors you will find who think that Jews have an equal place in Heaven along with Christians are some of those "New Age" hippie-dippy types from the Unitarian Universalist Church.

[Rev. Deborah Lipsitz]

While Warren's positions and statements on the LGBT population are clear and very offensive, not to mention contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ, this is not only problem many progressives have with him.

Warren preaches a doctrine of hate and intolerance that is radical and unsupported by Scripture. His theology is a simple one: Look like me, dress like me, act like me, think like me, believe as I do, or be condemned before Man and God for all eternity. Warren frequently uses incorrect assumptions based upon debunked pseudoscience not to support his brand of ideology, but to prey upon the ignorance and fears of others for profit and power. He is, for all purposes, the wolf in sheeps clothing that will lead many astray, as fortold by Jesus Himself.

It is not just the LGBT population in the United States that are angry over Obama's poorly considered choice. It is everyone this man has managed to offend, and we number in the hundreds of millions. If the media would open their eyes, they would know this. This includes the Huffington Post. They were one of the loudest critics of McCain's association with John Hagee, but now Ostertag claims we should all accept someone just as bad or worse, and from a President who should know better?

Ostertag, in his mind, believes this is all about Prop 8. It isn't, Prop 8 is but a small facet in the debate about Warren. Warren believes Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. are cults and idolators, and not entitled to the same rights as he and his followers. He believes that Jews are only in Israel to build the Temple foretold in Revelation, and that after they will either become Christian or Jesus will send them to Hell. He believes those who lack material wealth also lack faith. He even supports abolishing the US Constitution in favor of a new one that establishes a Christian Theocratic monarchy. I've attended Warren's services in the past, he's a dangerous radical religious leader with an agenda, never a good thing.

And Obama just legitimized everything Warren stands for by putting him front and center on the most important day of any democracy, that of a peaceful political leadership change as voted upon by the populace. Hundreds of millions will be watching and listening to this man's every word, and they will believe this is what America stands for.

Ostertag and The Huffington Post need to get a clue.

[David]

Gay marriage is not a stupid issue. Comparing discrimination of gays from marriage benefits to single straight people is like comparing apples to oranges. Single straight people are allowed to marry and obtain the benefits that marriage provides. Gay and lesbians are not given that option and are therefore denied all the benefits and protections of marriage for eternity. Walk a mile in a gay couple's shoes and see if you still think this is a stupid issue. To us, this is just as important as, if not more so, than say the economy!

[MIchael in Merced]

Yes, this Warren character is an horribly anti-gay person. But as Obama has said a million times, what he's trying to do as a politician is change things that need to be changed.

He has to reach out not just to those who agree with him but even more so with those who don't. We have to work together in this world. There is healing that needs to happen over all the Rev. Wright nonsense. This divisive crap that's been going on in US politics for years is getting in the way of progress.

If Obama later throws gays under the bus with his actual policy like Clinton did I will be really, really mad. But for now I trust him and I wish other gay people would shut up about this.

[MIchael in Merced]

I really can't understand the hostility about this. I dislike that jerk Warren as much as anyone, but Obama is not inviting him to make policy. Can't you get that? He is inviting Warren (and by extension Warren's bazillion weirdo followers) to be a part of a ceremony. Big freakin deal. This has nothing to do with policy under the Obama administration...so why are so many people acting like it does?

[JB]

Warren has been recorded on video and in text preposterously equating gay relationships with things like pedophilia and other abuses. Then most recently he doesn't apologize for this but blames us for misinterpretation of all his comments. That is so disingenuous. Maybe he really has had a change of heart, which would be good, but he could stop pretending he's done nothing hurtful.

Secondly, this guy somehow thinks that being anti-gay-marriage is not anti-gay. I'm sorry, but this IS anti-gay -- how can this (apparently) straight evangelical guy be the authority of what's hurtful and offensive to gay people? How gay is he to know this? Mr. Warren, what if YOU couldn't get married, and were told since childhood that it's wrong and worse than everyone else? That's harmful and unjust, and hence, anti-gay, and that is why we need reparations for all this damage caused by this anti-gay evil.