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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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…”

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.