Don't forget, Barack Obama also opposes gay marriage

Are gay marriage backers using a double standard in their criticism of Rick Warren's upcoming appearance at the Obama inauguration? Mona Charen in the National Review raised the issue, noting that Warren and Obama both oppose gay marriage:

What had Warren done to provoke such feelings? He supported California’s Proposition 8, which overturned a state Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage. But wait, Barack Obama opposed gay marriage, didn’t he? He stated explicitly during the campaign that he believed marriage to be the union “between one man and one woman.” His supporters clearly assumed he was being disingenuous. Based on Obama’s other beliefs, the atmospherics of the campaign, and their own hopes, they dismissed his opposition to gay marriage. Other supporters of traditional marriage don’t get such gentle treatment from proponents of gay marriage. Instead, as the above quotes on Warren demonstrate, there is a pretty systematic effort to portray opponents of gay marriage as simple bigots, no more deserving of respect than racists or anti-Semites.

Meanwhile, Mary Sanchez believes Rick Warren has some work to do.

-- Shelby Grad

Comments

[EddNorris]

In this day and age there is zero reason why the government of the united states should use the word "marriage". The word marriage throughout history has been used for many things (business agreements involving: bartering for money, peace and/or food), many of which we have federally funded organizations to prevent theses types of things from happening. Now All of these things should still apply i believe (although its not for me to decide whats wrong and right) but because we as Americans have altered what married once was it either became defined as something else or was adjusted. That is what broke the sanctity of marriage. All Americans should be united in unions, in which each state can decide what a union should allow and those people holding the personal unions should decide for themselves what they wish to call it, be it marriage, gay marriage, or union. Its politically incorrect for the government to define a union as a marriage because we were so bold to redefine what a marriage was and use it as it fit for the times ("the times they are a changing"). The problem which we find ourselves in today is that times have changed, and since we can learn from our past we shouldn't redefine the word but remove it from our government. You can select where you wish to live and if America isn't the place for you then you may leave but we cannot have semantics drive out good heart Americans for semantics. Life Liberty and the pursuit of happiness is what OUR for-fathers (the only people that unite us all as Americans) gave us with they're blood and lives, and the fact is that we guarantee equal rights for all Americans and for us to deny a basic right to over 5% of American is an outrage.

[Paul]

I have yet to see Shelby Grad post a positive story about gay marriage. That's disappointing.