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Progressives continue to press Obama on Warren issue

Frederick Clarkson rightly dubs it "rancid baloney" when people claim that Rick Warren of Saddleback Church is a moderate. Clarkson notes that:

Rick Warren has not (sic) inherent right to speak at the inaugural and Obama and his team are under no inherent obligation to pick him, or to have anyone do an invocation at all.
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Honoring Warren with his prominent position at the inaugural goes to the substance of Obama and other [Democrats' involvement] with the man and with his international empire. Its the prominent tip of an important iceberg. This has been a matter of some considerable political debate over the past few years, and may very well have a lot to do with policy in the near future.
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I believe that Obama et al are making a serious error in their alliance with Rick Warren. The justifications given do not hold water.... [F]or years [Obama has] been cultivating this powerful, Austrian school-informed builder of an international religious empire; who has big sway with governments in Africa and Asia. Some of those same governements are into the brutal represssion and perseuction of gay people. What kind of programs do you suppose Rick Warren, who some people say is "great" on combatting HIV/AIDS, can help develop when he is all about driving gay people underground in Africa? Economics? Health care? Civil Rights?

On January 20, turn your back on Rick Warren's extremism. And tell the President-elect that such extremism is not "change we can believe in;" it is instead, unfortunately, less like change and more like what we've had for the last eight years.

Reality might return to the White House after January 20, 2009

New Scientist is cautiously optimistic about the upcoming Obama administration:

Barack Obama may have an impossible burden of expectation on his shoulders, but one fervent wish of many US scientists should be easy enough to fulfil: simply lead the nation back into the "reality-based community".

That phrase, famously used by a senior adviser to George W. Bush in a 2002 conversation with the journalist Ron Suskind, epitomised the Bush administration's contempt for those who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality": that is from observation rather than ideology.

More here.

Happy Christmastide

According to the Christian calendar in the West, Christmas Day is the beginning of Christmastide. In the traditions of many Christian sects, Christmastide is the twelve days of December 25 through January 5--thus, the phrase "the twelve days of Christmas"--and is followed by the Feast of Epiphany, which celebrates the honorific visit to the child Jesus by "wise men from the East."

Many Westerners--practicing Christians or not--enjoy activities such as listening to Christmas carols during the weeks leading up to December 25, and on the day after Christmas think of "the Christmas season" as being finished for another year. Actually, on December 25, it's only just started. Christian churches mindful of liturgical tradition generally do not even significantly feature Christmas carols in their Sunday worship services until Christmas Eve, but then continue to do so right through Christmastide.

If you are in the New York City area and are interested in attending a service of Christmas Lessons and Carols, consider that of The Church of St. Mary the Virgin (Episcopal) on Sunday, December 28 at 5 PM.

It's Boxing Day

"A distinctive if somewhat peculiar public holiday, always celebrated and enjoyed and traditionally a day for a bit of sport." Photo by yours truly.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Jackson Browne, "The Rebel Jesus." (The Chieftans. The Bells of Dublin. 1991.)

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
Theyll be gathering around the hearths and tales
Giving thanks for all gods graces
And the birth of the rebel jesus

Well they call him by the prince of peace
And they call him by the savior
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But theyve turned the nature that I worshipped in
From a temple to a robbers den
In the words of the rebel jesus

We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why they are poor
They get the same as the rebel jesus

But please forgive me if I seem
To take the tone of judgement
For Ive no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel jesus.

Then the elephant shat on the stage....

Because of the passage of Proposition 8--which candidate Obama did but little to resist and belatedly--November 4, 2009 was bittersweet for literally 10,000s of LGBT Obamaniacs who'd given countless hours and dollars to Obama 2008.

"Well," many LGBT supporters of Obama said to each other with a tired grin at election-watching parties that night, "at least there is the inauguration to look forward to!"

Now the President-elect has again pulled a Donnie McClurkin and Mary Mary moment. There will be not one out gay person on stage at the inauguration. But, there will be Rick Warren, an anti-science, anti-gay leader of the religious right who describes himself as no different than James Dobson except in tone.

This situation reminds me of the occasional production of Aida at the Met when the elephant is brought out during the otherwise stirring "Triumphal March," and then proceeds, under that hallowed proscenium, to take a giant shit on the stage.

Here are two things you can do to protest the Warren:

1. Each of us can contribute to the Repeal Prop 8 campaign. Click here.

2. And on January 20th, “Turn Your Back On Rick.”

My friends Bob Zuckerman and Connie Ress have created a group on Facebook, Turn Your Back On Rick. From the Facebook page:

[On January 20,] YOUR BACK ON RICK [WARREN] as he begins to speak on the stage.
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[W]hether you are several blocks away from the Capitol watching on a jumbotron, or 2,000 miles away in your home, TURN YOUR BACK ON RICK....

Rick Warren 's opinions and place on the inaugural stage is no more a demonstration of "diversity of opinion" (the President-elect's justification) than is allowing Creationism into the halls of science education; it is not the inclusion of diversity, it is, quite simply, retrogression. Rick Jacobs of Campaign Courage said it well:

When Pastor Rick Warren was asked to clarify this statement -- if he actually equates same-sex marriage with incest, pedophilia and polygamy -- his answer was direct and unequivocal: "Oh, I do." That didn't stop President-elect Barack Obama from choosing Pastor Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration -- an appalling mistake that will forever tarnish our country's celebration of Obama's historic ascendance to the White House.

Sadly, it must be noted: Barack Obama continues to lack a record of "fierce" support for civil rights for gay Americans--"fierce" being the characterization that the President-elect made of himself because no convincing witness can be found to offer such a characterization on his behalf. A fierce record looks very different than does Obama's. It includes things at even the most basic level as interviews with local gay media, something candidate Obama assiduously avoided doing despite being urged to repeatedly at donor events across the nation.

LGBT supporters of Obama are told time and again that Obama's intentions are clearly progressive when in comes to civil rights for gay Americans.

For many gay Americans and their straight allies, being told this time and again has become an insulting sop and pathetic substitute to proper action from the President-elect.

Iconic Obama image's creator stands against Pres.-elect's selection of right wing Warren for inauguration

Shepard Fairey, creator of the iconic Barack Obama image featured on the cover of Time magazine, states on his site ObeyGiant.com that he will be "donating a chunk of the proceeds from an inauguration poster of Obama I was asked to create to the movement to overturn Prop 8" in response to President-elect Obama's selection of religious right leader Rev. Rick Warren to offer the prayer at the presidential inauguration on January 20, 2009.

Rick Jacobs of Campaign Courage puts Barack Obama's selection of Warren in perspective:

When Pastor Rick Warren was asked to clarify this statement -- if he actually equates same-sex marriage with incest, pedophilia and polygamy -- his answer was direct and unequivocal: "Oh, I do."

That didn't stop President-elect Barack Obama from choosing Pastor Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration -- an appalling mistake that will forever tarnish our country's celebration of Obama's historic ascendance to the White House.

You, too, can contribute to the Repeal Prop 8 campaign. Click here.

"Yes On 8" seeks to void CA's 18,000 gay marriages

Not content with their successful attempt through Proposition 8 on November 4th to strip gay Californians of their now-former right to enter state-recognized civil marriages in California, the "Yes On 8" campaign is also working to forcibly annual the California gay marriage contracts that approximately 18,000 same-sex couples entered into between June 16 and November 4, 2009.

High courts in New York, Washington, and New Jersey have refused to extend marriage rights to gay couples. Only Massachusetts' top court has ruled in favor of permitting same-sex couples to enter into marriage contracts.

President-elect Barack Obama also opposes gay marriage and has no openly gay people on the program for his inauguration, despite tapping Rick Warren of Saddleback chruch, who is a fierce opponent of gay civil rights, rejects proper science education, and defends America's use of torture, to offer the prayer at the inauguration.

Rick Warren wants it bad - I'm a NICE-guy right wing religious leader! And Obama's ready to give it?

President-elect Barack Obama has tapped Rick Warren to say the prayer at the presidential inauguration on January 20, 2009. Warren is a leader of the religious right. He is: anti-gay, anti-science (believes in "Creationism"), opposed to reproductive freedoms, a biblical literalist, someone desiring political power and influence.

At the same time, Warren has been assiduously cultivating a public image as the warm-hearted nice guy ready to be "America's Pastor." As Frederick Clarkson reminded us, Warren's PR campaign is aided by center-left organizations such as Faith In Public Life (FIPL).

And now Obama's played into Warren's hand and at the same time has ably reminded his quick-to-forgive supporters of his easy decision last year to let Donnie McClurkin spout his anti-gay superstitions on stage at an Obama 2008 fund-raiser.

More skeptical supporters of Obama are wondering why it seems that when you give Barack Obama a stage, he likes to put divisive homophobes on it.

Michelle Goldberg puts the Warren decision in proper context:

[Rick] Warren compares abortion to the Holocaust, gay marriage to pedophilia and incest, and social gospel Christians as “closet Marxists.” He doesn’t believe in evolution. He has won plaudits from some journalists for his honesty in forthrightly admitting that he believes that Jews are going to hell, but even if one sees such candor is a virtue, the underlying conviction hardly qualifies him as an ecumenical peacemaker. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal earlier this year, Warren himself described his differences with Dobson as “mainly a matter of tone,” and was unable to come up with a theological issue on which they disagree.

If Democrats collaborate in positioning Warren as the centrist alternative to the religious right, they consign vast numbers of people, including many of the party’s most dedicated supporters, to the fringe. “It does strengthen Warren as kind of a new Billy Graham figure,” says the Reverend Dan Schultz, a United Church of Christ pastor and the founder of the progressive religious blog Street Prophets. That has especial relevance for Warren’s role in Africa, where a very conservative kind of evangelical Christianity is exploding, bringing with it virulently anti-gay politics. “What I have heard is that it will help Warren overseas,” Schultz says of Warren’s role in the inauguration. “He’s big into work in Africa. This will give him a lot of clout over there. Part of the reason this is kind of insulting for me is that Warren has supported some pretty awful people in Africa, including people who think homosexuals should be jailed.”

Take action. Here's how to let President-elect Obama and others know that you oppose Warren delivering the prayer at the inauguration.

Religious progressives vs. New Evangelicals in the Democratic Party

"Who is Joel Hunter, and Why is Obama Praying with Him?" asked Time magazine two days after the November 4th General Election.

The answer is that he's "a bona fide megapastor in Orlando, Fla., and a longtime mover in the Evangelical world," as Timeaptly sums up. He prayed with Barack Obama by phone on Election Day, along with "Otis Moss II, the retired pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland."

But he's also one exemplar of a New Evangelical, a leader of the religious "value voters" who are often deemed politically moderate. But who deemed them such? The answer, according to Sarah Posner in her article, "Battling For the Soul of the Democratic Party," is a "constellation of organizations and initiatives"--dubbed the "Religious-Industrial Complex" by Dan Schultz of Street Prophets--that has "cropped up inside the Beltway" in the last few years.

This constellation is "cultivating the public personae of a new generation of religious leaders," a public personae of a "values voter" who is "no longer shackled to a 'narrow agenda' of abortion and gay marriage, and [is] voting on a 'broader agenda,' including poverty, the environment, and global HIV/AIDS." The constellation is also claiming that Democrats need New Evangelicals in order to win elections.

But the New "moderate" Evangelicals are ultimately...conservative. They still oppose reproductive choice. They still oppose full civil rights for gay Americans. Consider, alongside Joel Hunter, two other leaders of the "broader agenda," New Evangelical, conservative Christianity. Rick Warren of Seattle's Saddleback church denies the simple scientific fact of evolution, and Jim Wallis of Sojourners, as Schultz points out, has actively combated the idea of an organized religious left.

The only thing new about New Evangelicalism is how it's a conservative Christian movement that's made inroads into the Democratic Party.

This is shaking up genuine religious progressives, who like the Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, an associate minister at Middle Collegiate Church, do not see the "prophetic tradition of social justice" alive in New Evangelicalism.

Recently, several religious progressive wrote about that prophetic tradition in a new book, Dispatches From the Religious Left. As Bill Berkowitz pointed out in "RDBook: Whither the Religious Left?" Dispatches represents an attempt by religious progressives to enhance their a place at the table. Not only do they have to contend with the attention-getting narrative of the so-called moderate Evangelicals, but, also with what Frederick Clarkson, Dispatches' editor, sees as a movement

about marginalizing the role and voice of religious progressives, which is to say those who in past decades played decisive roles in stopping the war in Vietnam, pushing for African American and women's rights, and much more.