Rachel Maddow covered the issue of Rick Warren banning “unrepentant homosexuals” from his church quite well last night. First, the passage from Saddlebacks’ web site:
Finally, a word about being judgmental. It’s not judgmental to say that what the Bible calls a sin is a sin, that’s just telling the truth. Not being willing to talk to someone caught up in sin, or not believing that they can be forgiven, or thinking that you are not just as much in need of Jesus as they are ... that’s being judgmental.
Because membership in a church is an outgrowth of accepting the Lordship and leadership of Jesus in one’s life, someone unwilling to repent of their homosexual lifestyle would not be accepted at a member at Saddleback Church.
Nice.
One of the other matters Rachel underscores in her commentary is that Team Obama has “uninvited” close friends of the president-elect when that person’s views threatened to politically damage him. In this case it was Jeremiah Wright, when the campaign learned the pastor’s inflammatory sermons were going to break loose on the internets and cause a “distraction” from Obama’s announcement of his candidacy.
So apparently Wright can be given the hook when Obama’s doing political risk assessment, but not Rick Warren. You can draw your own conclusions as to why it’s now possible, even in light of the incredible mother lode of evidence of the extreme anti-gay views of Rick Warren, that Barack Obama doesn’t feel politically inconvenienced enough to dump the Saddleback bigot.
I guess he’s not willing to risk the wrath of the religious right as opposed to the LGBTs who actually worked to get him elected. You know, the same religious right that held a Values Voter Conference that prominently featured an Obama Waffles display during the campaign. Did I mention that the conference was put on by the Family Research Council, led by Tony Perkins, who is thrilled by the Warren invite—and the man who paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list?
Change you cannot imagine he can believe in.
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I didn’t vote for Barack Obama. Yeah, he’s from my hometown and all, but the moment he tossed Jeremiah Wright under the bus he lost me forever. It wasn’t that he had to distance himself; I understand that he needed to avoid controversy in the early stages of his campaign. But the way he did it struck me as cowardly and opportunistic. (I actually thought that Wright may have phrased some things a bit crudely, but I had no problem with his comments that were taken out of context and amplified by the Right Wing Noise Machine and the corporate media. Just saying.) In that episode Obama gave strong hints of his political character, and it stank to high heaven for this Gen X DFH.
After Obama started choosing his advisers—mostly tired Clinton retreads, many with rivers of blood on their hands, and other Beltway ‘centrist’ hacks—I was mildly surprised at the lack of alarm among the Democratic faithful. Well, now the alarms are sounding, but it’s too late. Get ready for another four years of a Democratic president embracing those who display every intention of disemboweling him while he kicks all but his wealthiest and most center-right supporters to the curb. Unless he’s got a magic trick up his sleeve, Obama is already setting the table for yet another right-wing resurgence, one that is going to make the Bush years seem like a love-in.
I feel a lot better about my Green Party vote every day; y’all can’t blame it on us this time.