So Warren pick means Obama is a homophobe but Lowrey (and Nancy Sutley) picks

mean...he's still a homophobe? I threw in Nancy Sutley because even though she's not taking part in the inauguration, she IS Obama's pick to lead the Council on Environmental Quality. And she happens to be openly gay.

Edited to change "bigot" to "homophobe."

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intolerance and labeling people with out proper justifacation.

Until I read that, I'd only seen posts expressing DEEP disappointment and hurt, in Obamas choice for invocation.

But I have nothing to say about that.

is different that being called a Bigot / Homophobe


You dont think Rick Warren is a homophobe?
You dont think think Obama has given him the biggest audience (legitimacy), of his life?

on the cable channels about the protests against Warren.

That seems to be the latest way for some to avoid facing their own foolishness over all Warren stuff.

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All they have to do is search or look on the first page.

telling people to shut up v. about 10 threads not shutting up.

Pointing out the threads angry at Obama is a little one sided.

having Warren give the invocation and how that squares with his choices of Lowrey and Sutley.

Are you serious?

Do you really mean to ask, how is drawing attention to the anger over this choice but not drawing attention to twice the number of threads telling people to shut up, one sided?

Not that you think it's one-sided, but the CONTENT of what I asked.

But its definately out there. Just because someone didn't type as a direct "Obama is a bigot" kind of quote, there are definately some that have gone out of their way to insinuate as much. I've seen accusations of Obama insincerely pandering to the gay community with his past votes in support of more gay rights and/or accused of being disingenius in the support for gay rights that he expressed on the campaign trail and in his policy platforms.

Aside from that, some people walk a fine line and call him a "bigot enabler" and apparently believe that he is giving a platform to the antigay rights movement here. To me, they are overrating the impact that some preacher giving an invocation has on mainstream America. Either way, if you are a "bigot enabler" then to me, you might as well be what you are enabling. However, I don't view what Obama is doing here as enabling Warren so much as it enables Obama's campaign promises of uniting and reaching to the "other side" to start off ringing true from the get go. And, as I said here before, I believe a significant part of the other side IS the religious right. Their religious philosophy inherently promotes a prejudice, intolerant point of view when it comes to ANYONE that isn't in a straight, monogamous marriage. But I don't see how you can truly reach out to your opposition as a progressive Democrat and avoid reaching out to those very people.

Nobody is taking Obama's rights away. We're allowed to criticize the president-elect in the U.S. It's not against the law.

I'm not saying that I agree that Obama is a homophobe or a bigot, but I can understand why others would feel that he is, and I don't think that the accusation of such is nearly as bad as taking rights away from a minority.

Now, if somebody wanted to make Obama's marriage illegal, I would fight that.

Obama is bigoted in his view on marriage equality. He proved this by making his statement before the Saddleback church. This does not imply hatred or homophobia, someone suggested that a better term would be religious bigotry. I was willing to overlook this when he made that statement, but now by placing Warren in a position of honor it is demonstrating a pattern.

bigot and/or homophobe.

Show me

Anyone that is not for full equality for gays and lesbians IS a homophobic bigot.


That is the plain fact.

Thread after thread/post after post about how if Obama opposes gay marriage, he must be a homophobe, about how Obama chose to give a bigot the honor of giving the invocation so he obviously doesn't care about the feelings of gay people, etc.

give the invocation-themed threads. Starting threads like that results in people with opinions on both sides expressing those opinions. Then you complain about how many threads and posts there are disagreeing with you? There are a lot of posts on both sides of the issue. people upset by that should stop starting threads on the subject. If the threads are here, though, and I see them, I'm posting on them. And?

I think Eugene Robinson, answering online questions today on the Washington Post, got it right...

Eugene Robinson: Two of my colleagues, E.J. Dionne and Richard Cohen, wrote about the Warren invitation this morning on the op-ed page; I'll give you links to the two columns in a minute. I haven't written about it yet, but I might still -- I don't like the choice of Warren, especially in this context. An inauguration is all about symbolism, and it seems to me that choosing Warren -- so soon after Proposition 8, which he supported, and his offensive linking of gay marriage to incest and polygamy -- can only be seen as a slap in the face to the millions of gays and lesbians who voted for Change. I'd have no objection if Obama invited him to the White House, but the inauguration is such a symbolic moment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/12/19/DI2008121902777.html

reasoning that Obama's a homophobe for giving Warren the honor of giving the invocation but then how can those same people explain Obama's choice of Lowery to give the benediction not to mention his choice of Nancy Sutley for the Council on Environmental Quality.

That said, I find Obama's choice of the creepy Rick Warren extremely disappointing, to say the least, and agree with Eugene Robinson that it is a 'slap in the face to gays' and, I might add, those who of us who feel gay marriage is a civil rights issue.

and I'm one of those who feels gay marriage is a civil rights issue.

Excerpts:

In the same way, if someone publicly charges that "Mormonism is a cult," it is impossible to say that the claim by itself is mistaken or untrue. However, if the speaker says that heaven is a real place but that you will not get there if you are Jewish, or that Mormonism is a cult and a false religion but that other churches and faiths are the genuine article, then you know that the bigot has spoken. That's all in a day's work for the wonderful world of the American evangelical community, and one wishes them all the best of luck in their energetic fundraising and their happy-clappy Sunday "Churchianity" mega-feel-good fiestas. However, do we want these weirdos and creeps officiating in any capacity at the inauguration of the next president of the United States?

As Barack Obama is gradually learning, his job is to be the president of all Americans at all times. If he likes, he can oppose the idea of marriage for Americans who are homosexual. That's a policy question on which people may and will disagree. However, the man he has chosen to deliver his inaugural invocation is a relentless clerical businessman who raises money on the proposition that certain Americans—non-Christians, the wrong kind of Christians, homosexuals, nonbelievers—are of less worth and littler virtue than his own lovely flock of redeemed and salvaged and paid-up donors.

A president may by all means use his office to gain re-election, to shore up his existing base, or to attract a new one. But the day of his inauguration is not one of the days on which he should be doing that. It is an event that belongs principally to the voters and to their descendants, who are called to see that a long tradition of peaceful transition is cheerfully upheld, even in those years when the outcome is disputed. I would myself say that it doesn't need a clerical invocation at all, since, to borrow Lincoln's observation about Gettysburg, it has already been consecrated. But if we must have an officiating priest, let it be some dignified old hypocrite with no factional allegiance and not a tree-shaking huckster and publicity seeker who believes that millions of his fellow citizens are hellbound because they do not meet his own low and vulgar standards.

http://www.slate.com/id/2207148/

So am I, BTW, but Obama is not. I personally agree with Hitchens, but he's talking about a situation at odds with everything Obama ran on and IS. So I don't really think his opinion is relevant to the topic of this thread about the consistency in the logic of those who think of Obama as a homophobe.

Rick Warren is creepy.

it doesn't cancel. I never called Obama a homophobe. I said simply that he should never have honored Warren by inviting him to give the invocation at the most historic inauguration since Washington's. However, since that is the only topic you want to discuss, I will say again that no one knows whether Obama is a homophobe or not, maybe not even Obama.

No one ought jump to conclusions about someone's internal state of mind/emotions from something like a political appointment. I have little doubt that bigoted politicians have appointed minorities and women for political reasons and also that a homophobic politician is perfectly capable of appointing a gay person if the homophobe thinks it will help him or her in some way.

add to that, as Frank did, that giving someone the invocation has always been a mark of respect. If you don't respect what a clergyman preaches, you ought not invite him to perform a clergyman's gig at the Inaugural.

You'dda thunk Obama would have learned that after all the flap about "How can he claim he does not agree with Rev. Wright. Not only did he sit in his church for 20 years, but Wright married him and baptized his children." That was from the right. Now the center and left is saying, don't honor Warren with the Inauguration. Am I the only one seeing the parallet?

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It means he made a mistake. One that he's no doubt stuck with now.

He gave GLBT the finger with the McClurkin affair.

Once is a mistake. Twice is a pattern.

the same as I was trying to make in my post about the Grand Dragon and MLK Jr cancelling each other out. Same principle, regardless of how many people are in each camp. it would be wrong to have the Grand Dragon give the invocation even if there were only 4 in MLK's camp and only 2000 in the Grand Dragon's (or vice versa, or 4 in each camp), Numbers are irrelevant.

. . .there are only 25 or so posts that can be viewed. Everything else was deleted. We cannot have civil discourse.

....with disappearing ink, today.
You need to read fast.

I can't believe how fellow libs. insult each other because they don't believe we really believe they deserve equal rights. :shrug:

that you support equal rights for gay people. You, in this case being a general use of the term, not you directly.

Some GLBT DUers have been called a disease and some have been called a cancer, literally, through PMs and publicly. There is a lot that is going on behind the scenes that many don't know about. We really are being hated and harassed behind the scenes and many of you don't know that. So, when someone tries to justify this Warren thing, it's just salt in the wounds at that point.

Just so you know.

sentiments. If anyone DID say such things, they should be banned, not just have their posts deleted.

the senders on the board for it. I would sure like to see the mouth breathers outed for much the same reason as I would like a head's up when I am approaching a turd on the sidewalk.

At the least can't you acknowledge the general hurt felt by the GLBT community (and others)? If not can you at least stop contributing to the frustration being felt by many now?

(and others), I've gotten slammed for apparently being "disingenuous" about my feelings even though nobody can point to anything I EVER said to deserve the names they called me. I am simply asking why Obama's "pro-gay choices" for lack of a better term are ignored and he's still called a homophobe by some.

or that you acknowledged it and decided to fan the embers.

If you're getting slammed there may be a reason for it. If you honestly didn't know why, you could have started a thread asking about it or approaching someone who slammed you.

No-I was slammed for not possibly being able to care about the rights of gay people as much as I said I did. They didn't know I had a gay person in my family who I talk to all the time who would strongly disagree with anyone accusing me of being a bigot and worse.

If you're getting slammed there may be a reason for it. If you honestly didn't know why, you could have started a thread asking about it or approaching someone who slammed you.

There is no reason for it other than nastiness from people who had something against me from the primaries.

you're getting warmer...

Jesse Helms' staff included one of the first black students at the University of Mississippi - James Meredith,.

The world is a complicated place.

thanks 4 the interesting facts. I'm going to share these at Christmas dinner thursday

a person who does not support EQUAL rights is a bigot, even if they support SOME rights, and have SOME friends who are (insert your favorite minority).

Racist white men can (and often do) have sex with minority women - and yet still remain bigots.
There are sexist misogynistic men who marry women and hire them for jobs and such.
There are some homophobic assholes who think they aren't bigots because they gave a donut to a gay guy once and explained nicely that if they wouldn't have sex, they wouldn't get aids.

Supporting limited rights is not the same as supporting equal rights, even if you smile nicely while denying those rights. Not supporting EQUAL rights is discrimination. I'm not seeing a distinction between advocating for discrimination and being a bigot - it's all the same to me.

When he comes out in support of EQUAL rights, I will retract that statement. In the meantime, as skinner has himself said, Obama's views on marriage violate DU's membership/posting rules because they are not in support of equal rights.

If you want to explain how you can be FOR discrimination against a group of people without being a bigot, please ... knock yourself out.

Now, how do you explain his choices of Lowrey and Sutley? Would a homophobe choose THEM?

Obama could show up to the inauguration wearing a giant pope hat in the shape of a pink triangle and a rainbow dress for all I care - but as long as he advocates for discrimination instead of equal rights, I will continue to call that what it is.

If you want to explain how a person can be not-a-bigot while opposing equal rights, please do.

He doesn't ADVOCATE for discrimination. He was against Prop 8, is for hate crime legislation to include gay people, is for giving gay couples all the rights of straight couples except for the name "marriage" which is wrong of him, but hardly makes him an advocate for discrimination.

His own words. He doesn't believe in it, and says so openly.

I know you are having a hard time grasping and/or admitting that. That's okay. But don't expect the rest of us not to notice, or to whitewash it to make you feel better.

This is a very simple concept - if you believe in discrimination, you are a bigot.

I don't know which step of this logic thingie you aren't getting. Are there any of these statements you disagree with?

1. Equal rights includes the SAME rights everyone else has.
2. If you support marriage for straight people but not gay people, you do not support equal rights for gays; you oppose equal rights for gays.
3. If you oppose equal rights for gays, you support discriminating against them.
4. If you support discrimination against gays, you are an anti-gay bigot.

Those are just basic logic statements. Obama doesn't have a get-out-of-logic-free card just because he's Obama.

as the "colored" fountain was discriminatory, even though it was side by side with the whites only fountain and the same water ran through both. "Separate but equal" is invidious discrimination.

If you don't get that, read these SCOTUS cases: Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal is not discriminatory), Brown v. Bd of Education (overruling Plessy v. Ferguson in holding that "separate but equal is invidious discrimination that violates the equal rights clause of the 14th amendment to the COTUS) and Loving v. Virginia (the state may not outlaw miscegnation in any form, including marriage).

People who truly wish to see equal rights for gays will be petitioning Obama to appoint Justices who are at least open to being persuaded that gays ought to have a legal right to marry.

No, it makes him (or his handlers anyway) smart enough to choose people to appease others and make it seem that he's reaching out/across/over whatever.

None of us is saying that Obama is a homophobe, we're saying he made a HUGE BLUNDER and has slapped the gay community in the face with it. Having other people, no matter who they are, does not make up for having Warren there. Period.

I'm sticking with "he's a homophobe" as long as he's sticking with "I don't support full equality for gays."

The rest of your point though I agree with absolutely - Bush had people of color and women in key positions, but enacted/supported policies that were both racist and sexist. His appointments didn't negate that fact.

which is harder and harder every day, and with every betrayal, and with every jerk here who condescends to us or tells us to shut up.

Bottom line though, you're right, until we actually say that someone IS a homophobe if they don't support full equality for gay Americans, we will never HAVE full equality. So, yeah, I'm leaning there now. At the very least, Obama certainly exhibits homophobia with this choice.

but people here ARE calling Obama a homophobe. I can't "call out" other posters but you can either do a search or probably just look on the first page and see that's true.

benediction, nothing would have been amiss or awry? Besides, the issue for me is not whether Obama is a homophobe. It is that obama honored Rick Warren, who is against most Democrats holding office, against separation of Church and state, against equal rights for women and against choice. Yeah, let's single this guy out for lots of clergyman honors.

of my OP-how you square Warren with the other 2 I named.

have cancelled out honoring the Grand Dragon. Similarly, honoring Lowery by inviting him to give the benediction does not cancel honoring Warren by asking him to give the invocation.

Homophobia has to do with state of mind, beliefs, feelings, etc. Neither you nor I can ever know what Obama thinks, feels, etc. So, that would be a pointless discussion. We could both guess. That's all.

I am not totally sure I even care what Obama thinks or feels about gay people. I DO, however, care what Obama says and does vis a vis gay people. Inviting Warren was a bad move vis a vis gay people.

I don't think the Grand Dragon is equivalent to Warren. Do you think the Grand Dragon would take divisive language off his website to appear more tolerant of black people? No way.

I don't think Warren was a good move vis a vis gay people, either. But I don't think he thought he'd have such a (rightfully) outpouring of negative feelings from gay people and supporters. But Obama ALSO has good policy positions on gay rights except for the word "marriage" which is wrong of him but not unknown.

don't have a clue what the Grand Dragon would or would not do if there were millions of dollars and a lot of respect in it for him. And, the language WAS there for years and Warren's preached it for years. So, Warren took it off after a big flap over the invocation. You seemn to think that means something positive or honorable. Realistically, what do you think that means?

I know of a cult that used to pray that no one would find out what they were doing. They never stopped doing it doing it though. They just didn't want anyone to know, so that they would not have to be accountable.

I responded.

I think Warren took it off because Obama saw the reaction he was getting for choosing him and he TOLD him to take it off. I don't think Warren changed his beliefs, but who knows if it will affect people who go to his website to find out about his church's beliefs.

Who knows what can happen if evangelicals who see Warren giving that invocation will think-maybe it will get some of them, especially the young ones, interested in OBAMA.

give Warren any props for hiding stuff after his invitation to give the invocation hit the fan. To me, that only makes him dishonest and cowardly. And again, you have no clue what the Grand Dragon would or would not have done if he stood to lose money and honors.

Sorry, but what the heck kind of argument is "who knows what can happen?" Either of us can say anything on that basis. It's just silly. Who knows how much more respect WARREN and his crappy views might get from the entire nation bc Obama gave him this honor? I think that is a lot likelier. But, as I said, that is a fruitless road to try to go down.

Yes, it's a symptom of passive homophobia to be willfully blind to the acts of persecution being committed by others.

of the posters deny it was ever said. So again, how do you explain his choices of Lowrey and Sutley?

Sutley means that he's not actively discriminating against the hiring of gay women, but his choices of Lowrey and Warren means that he has no problems with elevating people who want to deny basic civil rights to others.

Obama himself has said that he doesn't think gay people should have the same legal labels, and thus, equal rights.

But I will answer your question about Nancy Sutley by quoting Obama.
"I said I was committed to finding the best person for the job regardless of party," he said.
I take it that this means Obama thinks that ALL of his cabinet picks are "the best person for the job".
Are you saying that Obama's qualifications to head the Council on Environmental Quality were based on sexual orientation?
Isn't it possible that Nancy Sutley's sexual orientation is secondary to her years of public service, just like the fact that she is female and hispanic.
Does the head of the Council on Environmental Quality counsel the PE or POTUS on human or civil rights?

As far a Rev. Joseph Lowery:
LOWERY: Well, I've never said I support gay marriage. I support gay rights and I support civil unions. Like a whole lot of people, I have some difficulty with the term gay marriage. Because deep in my heart, deeply rooted in my heart and mind, marriage is associated with man and woman. So I have a little cultural shock with that. But I certainly support civil unions, and that gay partners ought to have all the rights that any other citizens have in this country.
Hardly a profile in courage. Same ol' same ol'.

On the other hand there is his pick of Warren to perform the invocation for his inauguration. Warren will be his official representative to call upon god to witness his inauguration.

Is Warren the "the best person for the job" to appeal to our "the better angels of our nature"?

of course had many people concluding Obama was a homophobe for not supporting gay marriage.

:thumbsup:

Obama is curtailing to Warren by picking him but Warren is not curtailing to Obama by accepting?

posts on other threads calling Obama a homophobe. It may have been more productive to address those posts on the threads where they occurred by dialoguing with the posters who made the statement.

As I said, homophobia is thoughts, emotions, gut reactions, etc. No one here can honestly say that they know Obama's thoughts. As far as words and actions, though, he is a mixed bag. He's talked about marriage being only between a man and a woman and God is the mix. Things like that. As a supporter of the GLBT community, I cannot condone that, nor can I condone it as a fervent believe in total separation of Church and State. Under the Constitution, IMO, describing God's position on, or place in marriage is for my pastor, not my President.

On the other hand, he has said that he wants to repeal Clinton's DOMA and will oppose an amendment to the FEDERAL constitution that prohibits gay marriage. (Apparently, this is a states rights stance, not a pro-gay marriage stance.) And I know Obama bestowed a mark of honor and respect on a pastor who discriminates against gays in his own church unless they are celibate or, worse, "cured."

And that is what I know about Obama and gays, I do not know if he loves them or hates them, fears them or recoils from them or secretly yearns to be one. Neither can anyone else here know, one way or the other. You can claim to, but you don't. You know only what he says and does.

If people hate Obama, I am sorry about that. I am also sorry if they idolize him to the point that they cannot admit a mistake of any kind on his part or tolerate anyone else admitting one. Neither is warranted, IMO. (The thread parent admits the mistake, though.)

No one is talking about who "is" and who is not a homophobe.

Casting it that way is a way to protect bigotry. Every right winger and Dominionist leader denies that they "are" racist or homophobic, and dare us to prove that they "are." This distracts us from what they say and do.

People are objecting to what Obama did, not what he "is." Since people cannot defend what he did, they switch the argument to being about what he "is." That is a right wing propaganda tactic.

homophobes--- sometimes. :hi: