Douche Bag Rick Warren: Being Gay Is Like Consuming Arsenic

Many will recall that I - and many other LGBT bloggers - went ballistic when Barack Obama had Christianist snake oil merchant Rick Warren give the invocation at the 2009 inauguration ceremony.  Time and time again Warren has demonstrated that he and his organization deserve a hate group because of the deliberately derogatory and untrue statement Warren disseminates against LGBT citizens.  And that's not even considering his possible role in inciting anti-gay fervor in Africa.  As Think Progress is reporting, the porcine Warren again showed his true colors when he equated being gay with taking poison. As for Warren's "having a feeling doesn't make it right," the same holds true about the tub of lard's "feelings" that he wants to/must cling to the writings of Neolithic goat herders that science is proving false.  Just because Warren is psychologically damaged himself and/or enjoys preying on those who are so he can shake them down for money, doesn't make it right.  Here are highlights from Think Progress:

Megachurch pastor Rick Warren remains as ill-informed on gay identity as ever. Unfazed by the notion that there may be a biological cause for homosexuality, Warren told Piers Morgan on CNN this week that acting on same-sex attractions is no different from “punching a guy in the nose” or consuming arsenic:

WARREN: Here’s what we know about life. I have all kinds of natural feelings in my life and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I should act on every feeling. Sometimes I get angry and I feel like punching a guy in the nose. It doesn’t mean I act on it. Sometimes I feel attracted to women who are not my wife. I don’t act on it. Just because I have a feeling doesn’t make it right. Not everything natural is good for me. Arsenic is natural.

Warren has a long history of opposing marriage equality. Four years ago, he defended his support of California’s Proposition 8 by claiming that same-sex marriage is “equivalent” to incest, pedophilia, and polygamy. He also claimed that gays are “evil” and have “Christ-o-phobia.” Warren tries to offset his anti-gay beliefs by boasting his anti-AIDS work in Africa, but he has ties to conservative anti-gay leaders in Uganda who oppose using condoms to prevent transmission of HIV. The results of his particular efforts are unclear, but studies have shown that abstinence-only efforts have failed to lower HIV rates in Africa, and anti-gay stigma also contributes to the epidemic.

I again have to wonder why responsible and supposedly serious news outlets continue to provide this nasty individual from which he can spew hate and untruths.   The man is disgusting and I surely hope that Obama has severed his ties from this foul douche bag.

Adele Stan: Reflections on Rick Warren

Among the bloggers I met at the LGBT Blogger Summit in early December, 2008, was Adele Stan who among other things writes fro the Huffington Post. Like many of us, Adele has mixed emotions about Barack Obama's selection of anti-gay bigot Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation. Adele's latest column at Huffington Post looks at the Warren issue and her thoughts on the same. I share many of her feelings of betrayal and hope that somehow Warren either is uninvited or forced to recant from some of his hateful beliefs. If neither happens, unless and until Obama makes a MAJOR move in support of LGBT rights, I will have lost all belief in the man - something I have shared directly with his campaign. Here are some highlights from Adele's column:

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Nearly two weeks after Barack Obama stunned his most passionate supporters by announcing his choice of Rev. Rick Warren to make the invocation at Obama's inauguration, you'd expect the thing to have blown over. That it has not says as much about the American people as does our election of Barack Obama, of which we like to think as the expression of the better angels of our nature.

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Count me among those who felt stung, yea, smitten, by the announcement. As you've no doubt heard countless times by now, Warren didn't simply support Proposition 8, the ballot measure that overturned same-sex marriage in California -- he grouped same-sex unions in a category of unacceptable institutions that includes polygamy and marriage between an adult and a child. Perhaps you heard, as well, that Warren compares abortion to the Holocaust, and describes pro-choice advocates as "Holocaust deniers." For many of us who supported Obama vociferously during the campaign, this all feels a bit personal.

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"I don't even want to go to this inauguration now," I told one friend. Trust me, reader, that's a sentiment of extreme deflation, so excited have I been, so looking forward to a transcendent moment on the Mall with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, straining for a glimpse at a Jumbotron amid children and grandmas as they jockey for position. And still a bitter taste laces my tongue when I imagine Warren at the microphone, calling for the blessing of a God he believes sanctions bigotry against queer folk, a God who would deny a woman her bodily integrity, a God who demands that Jews and other non-Christians burn in Hell. Not my God, thank God.

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In fact, the predictable back-and-forth between left and right around this issue leads me in moments when my worser angels -- you know, the less-than-angelic angels -- of my nature have my ear to wonder whether or not we just got Souljahed out. Would Obama step on our tails to make us squeal so that he might look "normal" to the pro-America parts of the country?

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Over the days since Obama announced the honor he conferred on Rick Warren, I have engaged at least a dozen friends and colleagues in discussions where I vent my fury, listen carefully, vent some more -- all in the hope of ultimately letting go. After all, like just about everybody, I really want this Obama thing to work.

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Guardian America editor Michael Tomasky warily suggests an outside chance that Warren's stance might change through the experience of calling the blessing on the Obama presidency:
Maybe having given this "Holocaust denier" [Obama] his high-profile blessing will require over time that Warren moderate his views and his public posture, and maybe that would lead some portion of his flock to do the same. Jim Toevs of the Seattle Gay News suggests that Warren's increased contact, due to the controversy, with gay people may even transform him into a gay ally.

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Personally, I do not see Warren ever becoming a gay ally. On the other hand, all the media attention may either (1) harm his image and lessen his influence or (2) cause him to moderate some of the foul poison that he currently promotes.

Rick Warren - A Kinder Kind of Hater

Christo-fascist Rick Warren Scrubs Anti-Gay Message

I previously did a post on Friday that focused upon Saddleback Church's policy of barring "unrepentant gays" from church membership and queried whether or not Barack Obama endorsed the church's bigotry. Lo and behold, today it is turns out that Saddleback's website has been modified to delete the offending page (pictured at left) although you can still find the anti-gay language via Google's cache. As John Aravosis noted at America Blog, the questions that spring to mind are:

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So does Rick Warren now welcome gays, all gays, as members of his church? Or is he simply embarrassed of his views - embarrassed of God's views, per Warren's own admission? And if Warren is embarrassed of God's views, then what is he doing as a public spokesman on religion?

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Tonight on Hardball, Mike Rogers debated the Rick Warren issue and from the clip I saw, Mike did a good job even though some of the others discussing the issue were condescending and/or petty. Granted, I would not have suggested that perhaps Warren has "seen the light." Many of us are indeed outraged by the Warren selection and we are NOT confined to "Cambridge MA, Georgetown DC, the Upper West Side of NY, Santa Monica and San Francisco, CA" as suggested by Mike Barnicle who I often find to be a conceited pompous ass.

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The reality is that Rick Warren is a Christianist extremist and personally, I suspect that all the focused scrutiny on what Warren is really all about was getting to be too much for both Warren and Obama and that, if the scrutiny continues to go unstopped, Warren might well have to be uninvited. Scrubbing the anti-gay message on the Saddleback Church website was but an example of efforts being made to lessen the embarrassment to Obama and/or to avoid Warren being uninvited. The scrutiny needs to continue so that Warren's extremism is fully exposed.

Why the Rick Warren Thing Matters

Two articles help discuss why Barack Obama's incredibly insensitive selection of anti-gay evangelical pastor, Rick Warren, to give the invocation at the inauguration on January 20, 2009, does indeed matter. The first is a post by Jeremy Hooper at Good As You -I met Jeremy at the Blogger Summit - that sums up why Obama's selection of Warren is unacceptable. Here are some highlights:

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For us this choice highlights how lacking in understanding even our supposed Democratic allies are when it comes to the personal nature of anti-gay actions and rhetoric. For so many of our would-be, could-be, should-be supporters, gay matters are just political issues that they can think about, debate on, campaign with, and then put out of their minds when such is more expedient to their lives or careers. If they want to be seen as bridge-builders, they can earn brownie points by reaching out to those who have wronged LGBT people in one way or another. After all, why should they care? Where the hell are the majority of LGBT people gonna run off to in this two-party system that we call American government? To the party that still makes "smear the queer" part of its platform? No, not in mass numbers they won't. And since the Dem leaders know this, too many of them are too willing to sell us out too often. Principled stands be damned.

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So back to Warren: Here we have a dude who campaigned fervently for Proposition 8, saying many offensive things about gays being outside of God's vision for marriage. He also bore false socially conservative witness by using tired lines about CIVIL marriage equality threatening RELIGIOUS pastors' free speech. Then there are the aforementioned links to incest/polygamy/pedophilia that Pastor Warren was quite willing, even eager to affirm in a recent BeliefNet interview. And if that weren't enough, this is a theologian who cites "tone" as the only difference between himself and Dr. James Dobson.

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For those of us who live, breathe, laugh, and love within LGBT bodies and souls, these sorts of things are not simple points on partisan politic playing field. For us, these are targeted bits of bigotry that cut us to the core! They are they cruel ideas that rob us of sleep. They are the dangerous teachings that keep gay kids scared, depressed, and vulnerable. They are daggers that wound us in ways we could never fully put into words. But yet out of all the religious folks he could have embraced, Barack Obama, a candidate who filled so many of us with hope, has chosen this man to send forth word on his life's most important day?

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Joe Solmonese likewise has a column in the Washington Post that takes Obama to task for his selection of Warren. Like Jeremy, Solmonese is at a loss as to how Obama could not realize the message sent to the LGBT community by picking someone as rabidly anti-gay as Warren. In fact, the selection implies that perhaps Obama doesn't even care. Here are some highlights:

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He [Warren] was a general in the campaign to pass California's Proposition 8, which dissolved the legal marriage rights of loving, committed same-sex couples. For that reason, inviting Warren to set the tone at the dawn of this new presidency sends a chilling message to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. It makes us uncertain about this exciting, young president-elect who has said repeatedly that we are part of his America, too.

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More recently, he [Warren] even compared same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy. He may cloak himself in media-friendly happy talk that plays well on television, but he stands steadfastly against any measure of equality for LGBT Americans.

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So, are we angry about Rick Warren? You bet we are. And including a gay marching band in the inaugural festivities doesn't heal this wound. It only serves to make us question the promises that Barack Obama made in his historic quest to be president. We pray we weren't misled.

Rick Warren Pick is an Insult to LGBT Americans

FURTHER UPDATED: John Aravosis has a good run down as to why the Rick Warren pick is detestable over at America Blog. I truly do not know WTF Obama was thinking. To me, Warren exemplifies all that is wrong with religion in this country. The post also shows the ad in support of Proposition 8 that Warren did. I am beyond disgusted.

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UPDATED: Here's a portion of what Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin had to say about the the Rick Warren selection:

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This is the same Rick Warren who recently said that the relationships of his “many gay friends” are no different from child rape, incest or polygamy... Warren himself has acknowledged that the only difference between himself and Focus On the Family’s James Dobson is just “a matter of tone.” So given President-elect Obama’s stated commitment to bringing the country together, it’s hard to fathom the reasoning behind choosing such a divisive figure.

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Huffington Post and many other news outlets are reporting that the Barack Obama transition team has selected Christianist Rick Warren (pictured at left - note that he looks like he is living VERY well and missing few meals while making a living peddling bigotry) to give the inauguration invocation on January 20, 2009. Personally, the selection is equivalent to Obama running a paid television ad telling all LGBT Americans to go f*ck themselves. Warren is nothing more than a less crazy version of Pat Robertson, James Dobson, et al, and his selection suggests that all of Obama's remarks in campaign speeches about equality for gays were aimed at securing our money and our votes but totally insincere. I think I will take the Obama bumper sticker off my car first thing tomorrow morning, in fact. Why didn't Obama pick Fred Phelps while he was at it if this is the type of religious bigot he wants at the inauguration? Here are some highlights from Huffington Post:

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On Wednesday, the transition team announced that Rick Warren, pastor of the powerful Saddleback Church, would give the invocation on January 20th. . . . the announcement is being greeted with deep skepticism in progressive religious and political circles.

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"My blood pressure is really high right now," said Rev. Chuck Currie, minister at Parkrose Community United Church of Christ in Portland, Oregon. "Rick Warren . . . his position on social issues like gay rights, stem cell research and women's rights are all out of the mainstream and are very much opposed to the progressive agenda that Obama ran on. I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage with the president that day."

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And for the gay and lesbian community in particular, the choice is a bitter pill to swallow. "Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance," read a statement from People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert. "He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion."

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"Picking Rick Warren to give THE invocation," wrote John Aravosis on AmericaBlog, "is abominable." "Let me get right to the point," Joe Solomnese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a harsh letter to the president-elect, "Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans."

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Have complaints to share? Email Parag Mehta is Obama's LGBT liaison on the transition team - parag.mehta@ptt.gov.