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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyDecember 18th, 2008
So he’s not just homophobic, he’s arrogantly dismissive as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE2GExB_n7YSo, he said we’re no better than the lowest criminals — even serial-killing and elderly-raping felons think child molesters are the lowest of the low — and then he laughs when we call him on it.
By the way, he’s not homophobic beause he now has “a hundred gay friends.” Would just one of those gay friends please contact me?
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Legolas
December 18th, 2008
Also because he serves THEM donuts.
You know. THOSE PEOPLE.
Maybe I’m just being oversensitive, but the way he used “them” several times at the end of the clip felt like it was being used as more than a convenient pronoun.
elaygee
December 18th, 2008
Rick Warren has no Gay friends. He has Gay aquaintances who don’t tell him how they feel about his homophobic doings.
Maurice Lacunza
December 18th, 2008
Aside from the obvious closet potential, is Rick Warren saying that he believes that Islam, Buddhism, Judism, and Muslim religions are OK?
Isn’t the traditional view of evangelicals that these are “satanic” imitations of Christianity?
Is he endorsing these religions? Or is he using them to hide his discriminating beliefs?
I might add that 5,000 years of tradition does not equal right. That is just ignorant to claim that “thats the way we always done it.”
Rick can’t condemn these religions on one hand and then use them to support his homophobia. Carry on wayward soldier!
kevin
December 18th, 2008
I think Warren meant to say “hundreds of ex-gay friends”.
AJD
December 18th, 2008
The interviewer should have mentioned that for even longer than 5,000 years, cultures around the world practiced slavery, feudalism, human sacrifice and torture.
This is sort of off topic, considering the subject of the post, but the proper way to come back to the “5,000 years of tradition” argument is to ask, “What would happen to society, and how would society change, if same-sex marriage were legalized? How would you have to change the way you live? Same-sex marriage has been legal in Massachusetts for four years; how have the rights of any person been violated as a direct result, rights that would not have been violated had same-sex marriage not been legalized?”
This takes the discussion away from the fallacious “argument from tradition” and forces the other side to make a pragmatic case for their view.
KZ
December 18th, 2008
Could someone hand me the wastebasket? I’m about to projectile vomit!
cowboy
December 18th, 2008
–Jim Burroway.
Yes…I would be interested too. Let me see how huggy-huggy they are. Even if the gay friend stood in the same room with Mr. Warren he probably would have a closet door separating them.
Maurice Lacunza
December 18th, 2008
To AJD: Thank you for fine-tuning the whole 5,000 years of tradition. I was also thinking about hand chopping, owning slaves, stoning, taking the long walk, pay a cow when you kill your neigbor’s wife, an eye for an eye, and other traditional customs- customs that aren’t so popular today.
Rick Warren may be an avenue for some undetectable strategy by Obama. But he has no business comparing gays to molesters, incest and polygamists. And yet, isn’t polygamy one of those 5,000 year traditions? Warren is a literalist and they seldom make spiritual changes. Literalists think that they have to protect God’s interest on earth- as defined by the literalist.
Obama worries me but I will choose to side on the side of hope- hope that Obama knows what he is doing. And yet, with people like Rick Warren bending his ear, it reminds of Dobson and Falwell having a red phone to the White House.
It encourages me to know I am not alone in my thinking. Sometimes I wonder if I am off the deep end…making too much out of it. But my spirit rises in protest when preachers use God to defend their humanly beliefs. It burns a fire deep in my soul when God is mis-represented and when the “least of these” suffer injustice. Jesus said we should stand on the roof tops and shout it out. Thanks for writing.
Emproph
December 18th, 2008
That’s exactly what went through my mind, Maurice:
“Hey, if you don’t believe those of us who are God’s chosen, take a look at the heretics and blasphemers. They think just like we do…”
Maurice Lacunza
December 18th, 2008
Right on Emproph! “they think just like we do…”
Someone needs to raise this point to a higher attention level than this blog! Grouping Buddha et al into your defense is like saying, “hey even Satan thinks we are right!” Sounds like something from SouthPark!
Thanks Emproph.
Rick
December 18th, 2008
Just because Rick Warren claims to be cordial doesn’t make it so. Even if he were cordial, that wouldn’t make him less of a bigot.
John
December 18th, 2008
His laugh reminded me of Jerry Fallwell, the traitor who was talking about how America deserved the 9/11 attacks, at the same time that fellow Americans were trying to pull out survivors and the dead from the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. I guess those two have more in common than just the way they laugh.
Christopherâ„¢
December 18th, 2008
People like Rick Warren need to realize that being nice is NOT the same thing as being good.
Rick believes he’s not homophobic because he’s not filled with anger and venom when he talks about GLBT people. I’m sure he’s very pleasant and amiable when he interacts with someone who’s openly gay. But tone of voice has little to do with homophobia.
Fred Phelps and his family are mean, nasty and deliberately provocative in their messages to GLBT people, but when it comes down to it, both Rick Warren and Fred Phelps believe the exact same things about homosexuality. The only difference is that Rick Warren is less provocative and pleasant about it.
But being nice doesn’t mean you’re good. It would have been good for Warren to remain silent on Prop 8, especially in light of his repeated claims that he has no interest in politics. But he didn’t. He went against his own public statements to throw his weight behind a proposition that would hurt GLBT people. If he didn’t think his opinion had significant influence, he wouldn’t have done so. But he did. And that is not doing good. That is harming people, and no matter how nicely you phrase things, you’re still a homophobe if your positions and actions are designed to hurt GLBT people. Period.
We as the GLBT community need to educate people about the difference between nice and good at every opportunity. There are a lot of nice homophobes out there. But they’re still homophobes.
JJQR
December 19th, 2008
Ugh. Warren, with new credibility from being part of this major event, will probably gain a million more followers now.
Jonathon
December 19th, 2008
Rick Warren is a LIAR.
Marriage in the ancient world was not “one man plus one woman”. It was “one man plus as many wives as he can afford plus their servants, plus any other women taken as spoils of war, etc.”.
Abraham – the patriarch of all three monotheistic religions – had a wife and took to bed his wife’s servant and had a son with her.
Jesus didn’t encourage marriage and spoke scornfully of family. Paul later wrote that marriage was preferable only for those people who could not handle living chastely.
In Islam, a man is permitted to have up to four wives. Some Muslims, such as the King of Saudi Arabia, have dozens of wives.
Any casual reading of history demonstrates clearly that marriage as a cultural and social institution has changed over time. No one can seriously believe that marriage as we know it today is the same as marriage was 4,000 years ago. Heck, marriage today is different even from marriage in our great-grandparents’ day.
I wish that a journalist would ask Warren a simple question: How, specifically, would your marriage be harmed by extending marriage rights to same-sex couples?
Jonathon
December 19th, 2008
Another thought: If Rick Warren were alive before the Civil War, would he use his “5,000 years” argument to justify slavery? I mean, slavery is in the Bible, isn’t it? People owned slaves even during Jesus’ time. So if we’re gonna base our current social policies on what our ancestors did 5,000 years ago shouldn’t we bring back slavery?
Maurice Lacunza
December 19th, 2008
Jonathon, you are a breath of fresh air. I was thinking that we bring back slavery via the Proposition ballot. We could claim 5,000 years of tradition to justify it. And I was thinking about rolling back the right to vote for women.
Let me apply the Rick formula to slavery:
The AA population is around 13%, so why should 13% be able to decide things like civil rights and slavery? Giving AfAM persons access to equal rights flys in the face of all major religions and traditions: Islam, Muslim, Buddha, Mauricism, and Jonism.
We can’t let 13% of the people change slavery and voting. What did Rick say? This is a humanity issue, not, a civil rights issue!
When you put Rick’s arguments in the above light, then it is pretty clear that Rick doesn’t read any history books or understand democracy. Or the Bible. Or Jesus. He should come out of the closet full bore instead of with these baby steps of “acceptance” and “caring” for the “gays”. Gag me.
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