Separate but equal was not true equality with regards to American Blacks. Surely it’s not equality with Gay Americans. Rick Warren, as well as anyone else who would want to deny this civil right to others fits the textbook definition of a bigot. So why don’t we call them that?
Dan posted Rick Warren’s response to the recent uproar, so let me balance the equation by posting the now infamous video so the LOC’s readership can decide if Rick is lying about what he meant to say, or if he, like most other clergymen is preaching the same bigoted narrow-minded garbage.
I love the part in Dan’s video where Rick Warren said that the institution of marriage hasn’t changed in 5,000 years. Perhaps he should re-read the old testament, where arranged marriages, polygamy, wife stoning, and marrying your dead brother’s wife can be readily found in Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:27, and Samuel 17:25 respectively. Marriage, like everything else has changed.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZMf9mPB_nE[/youtube]
In the video you might notice that he doesn’t say he supports civil unions. He also saids, “not a problem with me” when asked if he supports partnership benefits. Nice way to weasel your way out of actually supporting equality turd.
The damming evidence that makes Rick Warren a textbook definition bigot and a turd is when he is asked if incest, polygamy and pedophile marriages are equivalent to gays getting married, he states “I do, I just think, for 5,000 years, in marriage has been defined by every single culture and every single religion…” Disgusting.
I know that Rick Warren is trying to maneuver himself into saying he was misunderstood, and he saids that he can “understand how he was misinterpreted”. But he can’t lie himself out of this one. He said what he said, and it’s on youtube!
Also before some of you bitch and moan about me using the words Bigot and Turd, here are the webster definitions
Bigot: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices ; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
Turd: a contemptible person
“You can’t polish a turd.”
Preachers aren’t historian, they aren’t scholars, and they aren’t even experts on the Bible.
They generally receive their “education” at small private Bible colleges that are in direct affiliation with the churches they already attend or espouse the beliefs/dogma that match the student’s beliefs.
Then, they are taught how to use or interpret the Bible so that they can teach or sell a bill of goods that matches practically everything they already believed before they started their training.
There is no scholarship or even no search for truth or God’s will, because the search was baked into the cake when they chose the Bible college that was going to teach them what the already believed.
That’s why they can boldly pronounce statements like “I do, I just think, for 5,000 years, in marriage has been defined by every single culture and every single religion…â€
Do you think he has looked at every single culture and every single religion? Do you think he has even read a published paper where an expert has surveyed even half of the religions of the last 5000 years?
Or, was that statement something he was taught in rhetorics class at his bible college?
Steve P-
Thank you. You said what so many of us have been afraid to say. While I know that not everyone at Saddleback is a bigot, it’s much more difficult to absolve Warren of his own words & actions. He actually said that my legal rights must be stripped away because I’m “just like a pedophile or a polygamist”. I don’t see how he could have been “misunderstood”, as he clearly said that LGBT people are on the same level as criminal sex offenders.
And no matter how much President-Elect Obama tries to say this is about “bringing people together” and “uniting the country”, it can’t be. It can’t be because the one blessing his inauguration prefers to exclude at least 10% of the nation & dismiss us as “deviants”. I was so looking forward to January 20, but now it just seems like just another day when Washington throws us under the bus.
Steve– I don’t think Rick Warren is a bigot. I do think he’s wrong about gays and lesbians and what he believes God’s plan is for them. If we’re all made in God’s image, then God’s image is inclusive of everyone, right?
Rick Warren is as much a bigot as Bull Connor was back in Birmingham.
Take a look at Richard Cohen’s column in the Washington Post –
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/22/AR2008122201848.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
“Not that he was planning to attend, but Barack Obama should know that my sister’s inauguration night party — the one for which she was preparing Obama Punch — has been canceled. The notice went out over the weekend, by e-mail and word of mouth, that Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation had simply ruined the party. Warren is anti-gay, and my sister, not to put too fine a point on it, is not. She’s gay.
…
“She is — or was — a committed Obama supporter.
…
“She’s been in a relationship with another woman, the quite wonderful Nancy, for 19 years, and she resents the fact that Warren has likened same-sex marriage to incest, pederasty and polygamy.
…
“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.
…
“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.”
You should have included this comment from Cohen’s article:
” The real problem has nothing to do with ministers and everything to do with Obama’s inability or unwillingness to be a moral leader. Sooner or later, he just might have to stand for something.”
What, you have buyers remorse? I’m confident Clinton would not have picked Warren for the invocation. Of course I don’t think she would be able to build the same kind of bridges that Obama is trying to build but at least you would have been bored(or enthused) instead of feeling hateful.
As I said before, get used to this. You pick a guy for the nomination who has no track record in a constituency that is not solidly blue, opposes same sex marriages and who promises to reach out to others in a post-partisan world and now you’re upset that he delivers what he promised?
I’d keep your eye on the substantive policy, including appointments. Bill Spaulding mentioned that Obama is considering appointing a gay man as Secretary of the Navy. If he does, thats a big and important step.
By pissing off people like you, Cohen’s sister and others with this selection, Obama has probably made more headway into trying to dialogue with people on this issue than any religious leader that would have passed the progressive/LGBT/secular/religious left litmus test. Many evangelicals are aware that Obama has pissed off a chunk of his base and will be more open to dialogue. And dialogue stands a better chance of changing hearts and minds than flamethrowing.
In my opinion this problem is not just about Rick Warren. This problem is about religion.
Religion is not an inclusive thing. In churches we are taught to judge one another, and we are given reasons to hate. Many Christians sing the “Christians Love Everyone” Kum Ba Ya Rally Song; but reason has taught me to doubt what people say, and to believe what people do.
If it wasn’t Rick Warren, it could have been anti-Catholic pastor John Hagee.
If it wasn’t John Hagee, it could have been antisemitic pastor Arnold Murray.
If it wasn’t Arnold Murray, it could have been a sexist pastor. Or a racist pastor.
Yes.
He certainly sounds like a bigot.
I believe, that Rick Warren may not care one way or the other on the marriage issue but, he is smart (or savy) enough to know that any pro-gay stance is a threat to his multi-million dollar empire.
On the surface, so many of these preachers are disingenuous at best, many plain dishonest. Inside they are greedy con men.
Steve Kim, nailed it earlier with his “baked in the cake” line.