E. J. Dionne: Warren Is Worth the Headache

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081223_warren_is_worth_the_headache/

Warren Is Worth the Headache
Posted on Dec 23, 2008
By E.J. Dionne

snip//


Warren understands that a new generation of evangelicals has tired of an excessively partisan approach to religion. Evangelical Christianity’s reach will be limited if the tradition is seen as little more than an extension of the politics of George Bush, Karl Rove and Sarah Palin.

An opening to Obama is the right move for this moment, and Warren appears to be genuinely interested in broadening evangelical Christianity’s public agenda. In a recent interview with Steve Waldman of Beliefnet.com, Warren compared gay marriage to “an older guy marrying a child,” and to “one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.” But he also called upon evangelicals to be “the social change leaders in our society” engaged with “poverty and disease and charity and social justice and racial justice.”

Obama wants to encourage this move, which would be good for him and good for progressive politics. Fear that Obama’s analysis is exactly right is why so many conservatives are so angry with Warren for blessing the new president’s inaugural.

Although I support gay marriage, I think that liberals should welcome Obama’s success in causing so much consternation on the right. On balance, inviting Warren opens more doors than it closes.

Warren has some decisions to make, too. He would do well to apologize for comparing gays to pedophiles, and also for comments to Beliefnet deriding mainline Protestants for not caring much “about redemption, the cross, repentance.”

It would be especially powerful if Warren stood up for Rich Cizik, who had to step down as chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals after daring to make supportive comments about homosexual civil unions. Cizik was pushed out by conservative forces opposed to precisely the social evangelicalism that Warren wants to preach. Cizik deserves a little Christian charity right about now.

Yet liberals also need to come to terms with what it means to build a durable majority. Doing so requires not just easy gestures but hard ones. Here’s a prayer that by calling in his friend Rick Warren, Obama took a risk worth taking.

The evangelical vote, despite Obama's efforts at reaching out to homophobic theocratic fascists, went 76% to the homophobic theocratic fascist party. That was approximately the same as Kerry did.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p2 see "white evangelical/born-again".

So what is the next excuse?

But just maybe, if their 'concerns' can be refocused, that would be a good thing.

From the article:

But a more benign view on parts of the religious left casts Warren as the evangelical best positioned to lead moderately conservative white Protestants toward a greater engagement with the issues of poverty and social justice, and away from a relentless focus on abortion and gay marriage.

My point is that Obama has been following this strategy since 2006 and it hasn't worked, at least not with the evangelical vote. If Dionne wants to claim that this strategy, while completely failing with the evangelicals, has indirectly worked with moderate religious voters, he really ought to produce some evidence that substantiates that claim. Otherwise I am going to continue to think he is just spewing some well written bullshit.

My opinion, equally unbacked by evidence, is that 2008 was an election that was nearly impossible for the Democratic candidate to lose, given the nation's complete exhaustion with the failed Bush regime and the dire economic situation.

Isn't an editorial an opinion? And maybe, as usual, Obama is quite a few plays ahead of the rest of us in terms of wooing the evangelical vote. Whether we like it or not, they are Americans and they do vote. This year didn't reflect any love for Dems, but maybe 2010 or 2012 will.

I do like the idea of changing their focus to help fight world poverty, AIDS, etc., things that churches probably should be concerned with instead of abortions and gay rights.

I am not attacking you, I am disagreeing with Dionne's opinion.

Before you get all warmed up to Warren about AIDS please understand that he is aligned with the Catholic church in fighting prevention - condoms - while fighting for treatment. The NGOs that have been struggling with various African states for around 20 years to get them to support prevention programs are wildly unhappy with the interference from the religious NGOs and their idiotic misguided do-gooder agenda.

(to post the article.)

whether they voted for him or not. If you think that Obama is going to play the same game that bush did by ignoring Americans that did not vote for him, you haven't been paying attention to his message.

then I have no use for an Obama presidency.

use for an Obama presidency.

The issue at hand is what level of idiocy from the Obama presidency results in my withdrawing support, and pandering to homophobic bigotry is right up there.

there are roughly 4000 American troops (and countless numbers of Iraqis) who are dead because Evangelicals voted in overwhelming numbers for Bush eight years ago.

What if Obama is taking a roundabout route to something like that never happening again? What if he's trying to open the doors to a better understanding and less of a "them against us" mentality for future presidents? If more Evangelicals can be persuaded to drop their "one issue" stands, then maybe this country can move forward in a more "live and let live" manner. That includes convincing Evangelicals that, while they personally have a right to feel however they want to on certain issues, they do not have the right to deny basic human rights to people they disagree with. They'll also come to see that Obama, contrary to the hysteria they've been exhibiting in recent weeks, is NOT going to take their guns and bibles away from them.

More and more I come to see politics as being very much like a game of chess. Sometimes you have to look like you don't know what you're doing now in order to win ten or twenty moves further into the game.

So while it might work, the simplest explanation is that this strategy has failed and will continue to fail.

The 'it is really complicated strategy that us peons can't fully appreciate the wisdom of' excuse has been floated repeatedly here and elsewhere to explain away all sorts of Democratic Party malfeasance and capitulation over the last eight years. I keep waiting for any of this excruciatingly clever trickery to bear fruit. Instead it seems to be what it is on the surface: capitulation and compromise with principles and people antithetical to core progressive ideals.

is much more important than the gay and lesbian vote that did go to Obama.

Better to piss of the people who got you here than to piss of the people who didn't - typical democratic logic.

until AFTER protests from the gay and lesbian community started. If Warren decides to embrace gays as equals, then it will be because of the protestors, not Obama.