I think the strangest moment in that interview was when Barnicle asked Rogers what he meant by “my community”. WTF??
Is this guy living under a rock or is this some weird straight privilege thing? How dare us gays have a community! (Cause of course we aren’t excluded, discriminated and threatened with verbal and physical violence in yours!).  What the hell? Is he jealous or something?
And then to have Rivers jump in that boat after Barnicle… ARGH! Oh I’m sorry, I guess only some minorities get to have community and us gays aren’t one them!
The dumb, it HURTS!!!

I gotta agree, Rogers does this very, very well. He says everything that needs to be said and only what needs to be said on the issue, and refuses to be baited or made angry. Rogers also does a great job keeping with the ‘frame’ of unity vs. divisiveness that Obama favors, and he’s also challenging to Warren rather than insulting.

If I were on that show, my words might come out more angry and bitter, rather than calmly challenging as Rogers’ words are. I admire the kind of discipline that Rogers obviously has. Interestingly, Rev. Rivers almost seems a tad embarassed to have to defend Rev. Warren, as he keeps stating that Warren only leads “the White Evangelicals”, not all Evangelicals apparently. What I would like to see is someone of Rogers’ ability bring up Warren’s statements about the “holocaust of abortions” in the US in the same kind of way that this is brought up—calmly and clearly.

Rivers interpreting the blowback arising from the statements of Warren, and the subsequent damage control, as Obama making a wise choice was rich. Like Obama is somehow prescient and knew that choosing Warren would set events in motion culminating in Warren seeing the error of his ways.

So for Eugene Rivers (and by extension Rick Warren), “reaching out” and finding “common ground” is something people who don’t agree with them need to do, while they sit back and say “Suck. On. This.”

I remember that part of the Bible. No I don’t.

Now that’s the way to do it. The only thing I’d say, with all respect to Rogers (and he deserves a lot of it), is that Barnicle as a guest host doesn’t understand some of the rules of TV talk shows:

1. The host is always more important than the guests

2. The host, in the interest of being “fair and balanced,” must make sure that one guest doesn’t appear to “win,” no matter how logical and calm and able to cite facts that guest is.

3. In the service of 1 and 2, it’s the host’s duty to interrupt and interject as often as possible.

So Rivers, a typical Xtian fantasist intellectual lightweight, was hobbled a bit to start by Tweety’s absence. That said, I’d like to see more of Rogers on the talk show circuit.

“If I use words like ‘empirical evidence’ and ‘point of fact’ forcefully enough, people will think that it’s the truth!”

Using smart-making words does not make your argument truth.

But when their favorite president lets New Orleans drown, stands by while white bigots are shooting Black people for wanting to get out while being Black; when George Bush virtually puts a pistol to the heads of over 4,000 American service people and blows their brains against the wall; when hundreds-of-thousands of Iraqis are killed in cold blood because they’re sitting on “our” oil; when the nation’s treasury is looted, our economy ruined, our large industries denied help, all resulting in misery, and sometimes even death, for millions of Americans; when innocent people are tortured and killed by Americans claiming the holiest of motivations; when all of those things were happening, where were the voices of the fundies expressing outrage at what was being to to their fellow human beings?

Who is this president of whom you speak? I deny three times having known him.

“civil rights, and how no American should ever be discriminated against because of their beliefs”

That’s an interesting interpretation of civil rights.

The Church of Gay…sounds okay, don’t it?…

I love going to church (start at about 3:50)

Did you catch just near the end, when Rivers was saying how presumptuous it was for Rogers to suggest that Warren “sits down with your crew” and actually talk (behind closed doors, without all the showmanship), Rogers said that if Warren is a spokesperson and leader for the Evangelical community, Rivers felt the need to throw in “white evangelicals” - in essence saying that Warren doesn’t speak for him.

He didn’t mention that earlier, when there shouldn’t be a gay community because we’re all one big community, nor when he thought he was making successful points in defense of Warren. Once Rogers spun it the other way, how blindingly fast did he distance himself?

Why are you afraid that we may have ‘gained something’ from this, Dana?

...make being gay a religion.

I’d prefer if we went the other direction and treated religion like being under the influence of any other thing that alters consciousness. If you’re hopped up on god then people should pay no more attention than to you than someone who has been smoking weed or had too much to drink. And they should not be allowed to be in control of vehicles or countries while their senses are deranged.

“I think the strangest moment in that interview was when Barnicle asked Rogers what he meant by “my community”. WTF??”

Well, blacks get this same thing from many white (and black) comservatives. The idea is for us (blacks) to pretend for their sake that we all live in harmony, and there is no racism, which would cause us not to complain when racism happens.

“And then to have Rivers jump in that boat after Barnicle”

Yeah, but did you notice that when Rogers described Warren as an evangelical leader, Rivers shouted out “WHITE evangelicals!”?

“What have you gained in all of this? “

It’d be kind of nice if Americans realized that being a bigot meant you couldn’t speak at the inauguration.

Dana, shame is a very powerful emotion and can change behavior. Making people aware that their hate is shameful is a significant thing, even though Warren still has a speaking engagement.

What have you gained in all of this?

We’ve gained Warren’s subtle acknowledgement of the power of the gay rights movement, and also that his statements about gays aren’t the attitude that he wants to present to the mainstream. That’s just a start, but something.

Make no mistake—the Saddleback site is still a storehouse of anti-gay Christopathy. It’s just not as easy to locate, and says nothing about homos being barred from joining the church (which I’m sure they were lining up in droves to do even before this latest bullshit).