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January 12, 2009
A coda to the Rick Warren flap
Posted by: Chris
President-elect Barack Obama has reached out yet again in an attempt to those who criticized his selection of mega-church evangelist Rick Warren to give the invocation at his Jan. 20 inauguration. The inaugural committee announced today that the kickoff event at the Lincoln Memorial on Monday, Jan. 18, will feature an invocation prayer by none other than Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire.
The selection of Robinson for the event, which will be broadcast on HBO, is a bit ironic for me because I used Robinson as an example several weeks ago in my gay press column when asking the hypothetical of how gay rights opponents and proponents would have reacted if John McCain had won the election and tapped Robinson as a "reach across the aisle" selection:
Imagine, in a conciliatory gesture toward Obama supporters, McCain selects Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop, to give the invocation. In a nod to his own supporters, he chooses the evangelical leader Rick Warren to give the benediction.
We know what the response would be. The Republican right would be furious: What a kick in the teeth from McCain to choose a minister whose elevation was an indictment of their core religious beliefs, and who advocates the destruction of traditional marriage and the murder of millions of aborted fetuses!
Gay rights groups and bloggers, still reeling from Obama’s unexpected defeat, would be cheered by McCain’s unexpected and courageous attempt at reconciliation. Press releases from progressives would defend McCain against charges of betrayal, chastising conservatives for their intolerance and their insistence on dividing, not unifying. Besides, they would point out, the benediction will come from Rick Warren, who opposes gay marriage and supported Proposition 8 in California.
You see where I’m going here? We know that, happily for us, history unfolded in opposite fashion, and Barack Obama chose Rick Warren to give his inaugural invocation, and civil rights hero Joseph Lowery, who supports full marriage equality, to say the benediction.
Yet the response from many gay bloggers and rights groups has been every bit as reactionary and intolerant as the Republican right would have been toward Robinson. Aren’t we better than that?
Apparently not, at least not some of us, judging by the ongoing bitterness on the blogosphere and among some gay rights groups. Hopefully the intolerant types will be mollified by the selection of Robinson, who is in fact a far more divisive religious figure than Warren, given that his selection as bishop has resulted in a schism in the ancient Anglican Communion.
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Comments
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Your hypothetically scenario, “your would-have,-could-have,should-have”; is complete and utter NONSENSE.
Let's debate whether or not, if the Queen had balls, she'd be the King.
Pointless!!!!
If McCain had won( your fantasy, not mine) and picked Robinson, the gay community would not be cheering him on. There would be silence, because most of the gay (and a lot of the straight)community would be dead from shock.
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Your hypothetically scenario, “your would-have,-could-have,should-have”; is complete and utter NONSENSE.
Let's debate whether or not, if the Queen had balls, she'd be the King.
Pointless!!!!
If McCain had won( your fantasy, not mine) and picked Robinson, the gay community would not be cheering him on. There would be silence, because most of the gay (and a lot of the straight)community would be dead from shock.
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Actually, Lowery opposes marriage equality.
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let me see now. Warren and Robinson are both divisive thus equal? Of course the differance is that Warren is a proven biggot and Robinson defines tolerance. Beyond that Warren is simply wrong on the issue of homosexuality in the secualr sphere. If you don't believe that, Chris then this blog and your carreer of gay rights advocacy are of no importance.
The comments to this entry are closed.
jpeckjr on Jan 12, 2009 9:07:32 PM:
The Obama team has also asked the Rev. Sharon Watkins, General Minister and President of The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to be the preacher at a prayer service to be held on January 21. As I understand it, this is the first time a woman has been asked to preach at this service. Robinson, Watkins, Lowery -- all ministers in mainline Christian churches, a segment of American Christianity that was ignored by the Bush Administration, as well as by the press during the last 8 years. Could the President Elect be suggesting that Protestant Christianity is more diverse in all sorts of ways, including views on GLBT people, than is recognized? What's next? Maybe he'll do something to recognize that religion in America is more diverse than is recognized?