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Friday, December 19, 2008

Sorry, President-Elect Obama, you blew it big time with this one
Posted by Jill | 5:32 AM
I know how I'd feel if David Duke were invited to speak at Barack Obama's inauguration. I know how I'd feel if Hal Turner were invited to speak. I'd wonder why someone who was an avowed racist and anti-Semite were given the honor of speaking at such a historic event, and I'd wonder if it were a way of saying "I'm president now and there's not a damn thing you can do about this and I don't give a shit what you think."

Symbols matter. Symbols send a message. Whether you intend them to or not, they matter. And the symbolism of having Rick Warren do the invocation at Barack Obama's inaugural is a slap in the face to the entire GLBT community that supported his election.

We are now in the middle of the annual conservative hysteria over the nonexistent "War on Christmas." Christianity is still the majority religion in this country. There is no persecution of Christians and there is no infringement on the right of Christians to practice their religion, except to the extent that some of us do not want to be proseletyzed and we don't want their attempts at conversion. Other than the right to exercise the part of their faith that calls for conversion of the heathen, by force if necessary, and making it an official religious tradition in this country, Christians can do pretty much whatever they want.

Conservative Christians have elevated feeling persecuted to an art form in this country. Their leaders rake in the cash and build megachurches and become TV stars and write bestsellers. But they are the ones who are besieged. When was the last time a Christian in this country was beaten to a pulp and tied to a fence to die in this country just because he was Christian? When was the last time someone told a Christian that his very being was an affront to all that is decent and holy? When was the last time that a Christian wasn't allowed to marry whom s/he chooses?

I am all for conservative Christians to be able to practice their faith in their homes and in their churches. But the history of conservative Christianity and its refusal to just let others alone outweighs any kind of "outreach" that we may want to do to find common ground.

I'm sure that someone at Camp Obama thought that Rick Warren would be a swell choice to show that Barack Obama is going to be the "President for all Americans." I guess they forgot about the segment of the population that Rick Warren equates with pedophiles and polygamists and those who practice bestiality. Or perhaps they thought "Fuck 'em....where are they going to go, anyway? The Republicans?"

During the primaries, I chose to support another candidate over Barack Obama for just this reason -- because I was concerned about Obama's tendency to be overly conciliatory to the other side of the aisle, often to the extent of capitulating completely in the name of "bipartisanship." We've seen quite enough of this from the Democrats, especially since 2006. When it became clear that Obama would be the nominee, he said all the right things. But at the first moment at which a new president makes a statement, the Obama team has chosen to present as its public spiritual face a face that represents bigotry and fear and loathing. Hate with a smile is still hate.

You don't want same-sex marriage? Don't marry someone of the same sex. I'm sick of hearing the arguments in favor of defining marriage as being between one man and one woman, particularly since those arguments often come from people who have been divorced multiple times and will fuck anything that moves. I'm sick of the arguments about procreation. Mr. Brilliant and I got married knowing full well that we would do whatever we had to in order to NOT have children. I'm sick of hearing about 5000 years of tradition. In those 5000 years, women were often treated as chattel and as property, and were unable to escape an abusive situation for much of that time. In those 5000 years women were pimped out to wealthy men by their fathers for their own aggrandizement. The history of heterosexual marriage is hardly one to hold up as some kind of paragon of purity.

I understand why the consultants at Camp Obama felt that this would be a way of reaching out to those who didn't vote for their guy -- a brief moment in time to say "We hear you" before working to enact policies that they might otherwise oppose. There's only one problem. It won't work. And what I don't understand is how you get from reaching out to a hatemonger like Rick Warren, who thinks gays are like child molesters and people like me are holding an express bus ticket to hell and that women cease to be human once they become vessels for embryos, constitutes "inclusiveness." I don't understand why "inclusiveness" means you get to throw one group who has actually supported you under the bus, embracing those who want to exclude that group from one of the fundamental institutions of American life, in the name of "changing the discourse."

Here's what Camp Obama doesn't understand: You cannot reach out to these people. You cannot do business with these people. The primary characteristic of one-true-wayism is that it's their way or the highway, or more accurately, their way or hellfire eternal. The people who believe that Jews and secular liberals and gays are conducting an armed war on their right to put cheap plastic inflatable nativity scenes on their lawns are not going to embrace Barack Hussein Obama just because he lets one of their own speak for a moment at his inauguration. I don't remember where I read it, but I read a blog comment last night in which the commenter said his grandmother told him, "When the mouth and the feet are both moving, watch the feet."

It does not exactly give one hope for the rest of the dance when the guy who brought the GLBT community to the dance dumps them the minute he walks in the door in favor of the smiling shiksa who's always spurned him. Because right now the feet are there on the dance floor, doing the electric slide with Rick Warren.

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11 Comments:
Blogger KELSO'S NUTS said...
BRILLIANT: Very nice analysis.

I'm not sure if it's a political calculus, what he really believes or both. I know he has a history of homophobia and if anything Jeremiah Wright's church was way to liberal for him. He really enjoys the Evangelical Extremism and has for quite a few years now. He's pretty close to Dobson and Robertson, too.

See, for me being South American-Jewish and having grown up with less privilege than Obama did, I really never cared about his skin one way or the other. Down here everybody mixes with everybody and nobody pays attention to whose skin is a darker shade. That's an American disease.

Obama made it plain that he was none to fond of Latinos and encouraged his "base" in that direction as well. He himself is not an anti-Semite but he is anti-Arab and Rick Warren is anti-everything non Evangelical and Whtie.

There are still a lot of American guilty white liberals who will let him get away with a lot more shit as time goes on but that's not my problem. Until it becomes my problem, should, for example, Obama want to escalate Plan Colombia or take an imperial run at Venezuela. Those would be big mistakes because the US would lose but Obama doesn't know any of that because he's a chickenhawk who never served his country and never even bothered to register for the draft.

It's time for progressive Americans to get tough on Obama now that his gay, Jewish and gay/Jewish money probably has disappeared for good.

Otherwise, if you leave it to us, we'll end up hurting the whole country economically rather than just the jerk about to occupy the White House.
12/19/08, 7:24 AM  
Blogger dguzman said...
Nice post. Thanks.
12/19/08, 2:49 PM  
Blogger Nan said...
Nicely said. Thank you.
12/19/08, 2:51 PM  
Blogger Bob said...
I don't put this on "Camp Obama." It has the feel of a very personal decision. It's been correctly noted that Obama's defense of himself as a "fierce advocate" for gay & lesbian rights was only in response to the outrage about Warren. Now he must prove that fierce advocacy sooner rather than later, & he can do so by presidential directive extending the rights of LGBT within the federal government & military.
12/19/08, 3:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Great post! Wow, Barack fancies himself a fierce advocate for gay rights, and he doesn't even support gay marriage. Guess you have to be really really really fierce to do that. A choice of DICK Warren would be shocking from George Bush, let alone from someone pretending to be a democrat.
12/20/08, 8:43 AM  
Blogger ned said...
Time will tell how this will play out, but...

My first reaction is: "lighten up."

As far as I can see, inviting Warren is (as Jill has pointed out) wholly a symbolic gesture. He hasn't been invited to become part of the Administration or participate in any way where he could influence policy-making. He's just going to read a short "prayer."

Although, as Jill also points out, symbols do have meaning, Freud reminds us that "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

There's a negotiating technique called "active listening." It involves an attitude of respectful attention to the ideas and opinions of those with whom you may not agree.

The point of the technique is to establish mutual respect and civility. It doesn't mean that you "agree" with the opinions expressed, nor that you endorse them.

It does mean that you give them a respectful hearing, in the context of which, if they do make some sense, it might be possible to understand what sort of sense that might be.

Equally importantly, it models attentive listening for those with whom you disagree, and establishes that as a ground rule. This means that they will be more inclined to listen to your position with the same kind of attention.

If your arguments and facts really are compelling, they may well prevail, once they get a hearing. If by some chance, your own position should be (God forbid) unreasonably rigid and monolithic, you may hear something that opens your own mind a little bit.

The problem with "culture wars" divisiveness is that we - all of us, on all sides - have allowed the issue to be framed by the extremists. And there are extremists on every point of view.

We will not solve these kinds of problems by having any point of view "forced" on those who disagree. The only lasting solution will come through dialogue and consensus.

Extremists derive a significant part of their identity from the conflict, and they have a vested interest in keeping it alive. But the vast majority of Americans are not so rigid, and it is a dialogue among them that needs to be promoted here.

If the inclusion of Rick Warren (with a simultaneous reaffirmation of Obama's "fierce advocacy" for civil rights, including those of the GLBT community) models respectful attention for his followers and suggests that they might adapt a similar attitude toward those with whom they disagree, some good may be done.

If refusing to accept "my way or the highway" arguments models such refusal for the center of those who share Warren's homophobic hysteria, some good may be done.

It's not "appeasement." Warren is not gaining any "power" over policy. It is rather acknowledgment that in a democratic society, we agree to listen to everyone, in the belief that the best ideas will prevail.

If the less extreme of Warren's followers do likewise, and our ideas really are the "best," those who are at all open minded will eventually be persuaded.

I don't think the selection of Warren in any way reflects an insulting or dismissive attitude towards those who hold different positions.

I think it is a clear and thoughtful way of reinforcing Obama's central message: that we are all Americans - even those whose opinions on certain issues we might find odious - and that as such, we have to find ways of working respectfully and co-operatively together.

We can't do that without civil dialogue. And we can't have civil dialogue without inclusiveness - even including those to whose views we take strong and principled exception.

If we believe that truth and right will prevail in the dialectic of public debate in the marketplace of ideas, then we should have no fear of Rick Warren's crackpot notions. In fact the more clearly and strongly he is allowed to articulate them, the more the spotlight is allowed to shine on him, the more clear their weakness and irrationality becomes.

You don't defeat bad ideas by trying to suppress them. You defeat them by allowing them to be exposed for what they are. Hopefully the events of the last eight years, and their reversal in November is proof of that.

I think this is the logic behind Obama's invitation, and if it is, I think it is one more demonstration of his insight and understanding of how minds can be changed.
12/20/08, 11:07 AM  
Blogger Ikonita said...
I'd be more inclined to "lighten up" if I weren't a second class citizen being denounced as a pedophile by a first class citizen. If Bigot Obama wants to reach out and talk to such Nazis, so be it. But it's a very different thing to have said Nazi give the inaugural prayer for his presidency. Would we even be having this discussion if Bigot had chosen a white supremacist? And by the way, why isn't he reaching out the KKK? I'm glad you want to talk to those people. I've spent most of my life listening to them--being called a fag, a pedophile, a queer, and anti-god. It's time for Bigot Obama and his new fascist friends to do the listening.
12/20/08, 12:05 PM  
Blogger ned said...
Ikonita -

I'm very sorry for the pain you've been caused by bigots. But the fact is they'll continue to be bigots, and continue to cause you - and all of us - pain, unless we can find a way to change their minds.

We can't do that by shutting them out, marginalizing them, disrespecting them and trying to "hurt them back."

Martin said it: "Darkness cannot overcome darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot overcome hate. Only love can do that."

I know it seems hard, maybe foolishly idealistic - but we've tried the other way for centuries, and that hasn't worked very well has it?

Not everyone who acknowledges bigots as fellow human beings (albeit mis-guided and possibly dangerous ones) becomes a bigot.

I'm sure that the fundamentalist extremists would be happy to think that Warren's mere symbolic presence is powerful enough to turn you against Barack Obama, in spite of his avowed and proven "fierce advocacy" for GLBT (and all) civil rights - causes you presumably support.

What I can't understand is why you would grant him such power?
12/20/08, 5:23 PM  
Blogger Ikonita said...
The Nazi extremists aren't going to be happy then, because Warren's "symbolic" presence has not made me turn on Bigot Obama. I was never with him to begin with. I won't support anyone who doesn't support me. And Bigot's "fierce advocacy" is not proven -- he doesn't even support gay marriage. I noticed you skipped my point about inviting a white supremacist to give the inauguration. What a wonderful and symbolic message that would send, eh? Reaching out to Nazis? Go for it! Just don't give them ANY legitimacy in the process. And maybe Bigot should be reaching out to the gay community, not to Nazis. I think we've suffered far more. This was, AT BEST, an extremely insensitive move. If he wanted to make a more symbolic, more powerful, and more historic move, he should have picked openly gay Reverend V. Gene Robinson to give the inaugural prayer. But that would have been way too courageous a thing for a democrat to do.
12/20/08, 10:04 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...
I'm pretty sure it is wrong to discuss Obama's associations with clergy.
12/21/08, 5:18 AM  
Blogger J said...
I keep thinking that at least Clinton waited until he was in office to break my heart, and his promises, to the gay community. Sigh.
12/24/08, 12:06 PM  
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