I still would much rather there be absolutely no religious ceremonies at an official government event. Keep goverment and religion separate.

Jan 13, 2009 at 9:20 am · @Reply · Flag

This doesn’t heal any wounds for me… Being offered this sop seems condescending in the extreme — and I hate that we’re so willing to say that all is forgiven.

Jan 13, 2009 at 10:20 am · @Reply · Flag

In an effort to combat Warren’s anti-gay message, Robinson has arranged for an elaborate invocation.

Robinson has not yet decided if the Gay Men’s Choir of Washington D.C. will conclude the ceremony with “We Are Family (If the State Recognizes It)” or “Yes We Can (Eventually Get Married)”.

http://www.weeklyworldnews.com.....s-all-out/

Jan 13, 2009 at 11:17 am · @Reply · Flag

REALLY appreciate your helping lead the outrage against Warren, and not deepthroating the prosthetic penis bull about how Robinson was planned all along but you’re erasing your own point advantage by repeatedly misrepresenting what this is which is not, repeat NOT, “the opening invocation of the Inauguration”, nor the “kick off of the Inauguration.”

You owe your readers the responsibility of writing more carefully.

This apparently is the first “Inauguration week event.” For those who don’t get the crucial difference, think of it this way: it’s a White Party cocktail party with one drink ticket per person but neither Robinson, nor you, nor we, are invited to the private VIP event AKA the ACTUAL Inauguration two days later.

Yes, there will be some MSM attention to this, but, unlike the actual Inauguration it will NOT be carried live, in its entirety, for la world to see. And your juxtaposition of the point about those with cable being able to watch it with “That’s change we can believe in. It shows the president-elect is ….” implies, however unintentionally, that HBO’s action is something Obama himself asked for.

Too nitpicky? Hardly, when one looks back at the number who read the “some people are saying Obama should appoint gay man to Secretary of the Navy” into “OBAMA wants gay man for Secretary of the Navy.”

And before you or anyone else interprets that the Obama Mafia also invited the DC Gay Men’s Chorus to perform, note it was HBO itself NOT O Inc.

And just as one is thrilled by your statements about the urgency of our not resting but continuing to demand we be taken seriously, one is simultaneously disheartened by your obsessive compulsion for continuing to give credit to the driver of the bus ONCE AGAIN on top of us when none is due.

Obama did NOT “actually listen to what his opponents are saying” unless we all were saying, “It’s okay to give Warren the starring role on the all-other-progamming-black-out day if you throw us a gay crumb a couple of days before while everyone else will be watching football.”

Yes, I remain happy that Queerty seems finally to be going through some political puberty, but contradictory statements like, “Obama .. multiple viewpoints and … opposing views. I happen to side with him. Nothing makes me happier than to see people on the left and the right, the religious and the non-religious, the gay, straight, the rainbow-hued populace of our nation forced to recognize that each of us has an equal part and voice in our destiny” sadly demonstrate you still have to learn the difference between boy and man.

For the problem all along has been that Obama doesn’t get that the Warrens of his Pollyanna Land do NOT recognize, do NOT believe in our having an “equal part and voice.”

Schizophrenia much?

Jan 13, 2009 at 11:53 am · @Reply · Flag

hell no!

this is a weak effort to correct a wrong that will be allowed to remain wrong and more prominently so…

this will never undo warren!

peace
alicia banks
OUTLOOK
http://aliciabanks.blogspot.com

Jan 13, 2009 at 12:32 pm · @Reply · Flag

@Leland Frances:

“Nothing makes me happier than to see people on the left and the right, the religious and the non-religious, the gay, straight, the rainbow-hued populace of our nation forced to recognize that each of us has an equal part and voice in our destiny” sadly demonstrate you still have to learn the difference between boy and man.

For the problem all along has been that Obama doesn’t get that the Warrens of his Pollyanna Land do NOT recognize, do NOT believe in our having an “equal part and voice.”

Schizophrenia much?

—————

Sigh. Frances, you and so many other people seem so devoted to the idea of being in this big epic war. But believe it or not, the opposition isn’t a shadowy conspiracy of brittle housewives and sexually repressed priests. They’re *actual real people.* They want what’s best for their neighbors and friends, and they want to do right by their country and their faith. That makes this argument fundamentally COLLABORATIVE.

Are they fucking up the country, and tearing the constitution to shreds? Sure. Are they destroying lives? Absolutely. But those things are *impersonal* acts. They only happen because it’s so easy for the religious right to mythologize GLBT Americans in to a bunch of demon-possessed prostitutes. It’s high time that we realized that the only way to break those delusions, and stop all the bullshit that they’re spouting and the damage they’re doing to themselves and to us, is to invite them to the table even in the absence of reciprocity.

Tell me, Frances, when you spend your day screaming at a bunch of anti-marriage protesters instead of talking with them, what happens to their son, who’ll find out he’s gay in a few years? What have you taught his parents to expect, and what chances have you lost for his sake?

Jan 13, 2009 at 1:30 pm · @Reply · Flag

It’s pathetic and doesn’t change anything.

Jan 13, 2009 at 2:23 pm · @Reply · Flag

Sorry, this does not heal me. I am and will be outraged. My eyes have been opened.

Inviting Warren is not inclusive if the invitee is a bigot’s bigot. His sorry ass can preach to his shopping mall suburban flock but he does not need to address the nation. I walked for Obama door to door for months in rain and snow–how many of RW’s flock of sheeples did that? Zero, most likely and they won’t vote for him in 2012 either and I won’t be walking door to door or making calls either! So Lose Lose situation– Obama the appeaser.

Jan 13, 2009 at 5:45 pm · @Reply · Flag

Inviting Bishop Robinson doesn’t make things all better as far as I’m concerned. Disinviting Warren, that would make it all better. I realize that won’t and probably can’t happen. Inasmuch as the Robinson invite makes the christianists and Warren squirm, I guess that’s a silver lining.

Selecting Robinson in particular just seems like pandering to the community, and it’s kind of patronizing. Maybe I’m just splitting hairs and being unnecessarily oppositional, but I would have preferred (if it had to be an Episcopalian) Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schiori, the head of the Episcopal Church in America — not only is she an ordained woman, she has stood steadfastly behind Robinson and hasn’t yielded an inch to the rogue diocese’s leaving the diocese over his ordination. That would have sent the same message, maybe a little deeper, and not such an obvious pacifier. It makes me wonder how/who is advising BHO on LGBT issues….the Robinson invitation just makes us look shallow and the administrations support superficial.

…or maybe not, I could be premenstrual.

And ditto on the calls for clergy from other religions. While I’d like to see a scaling back of the religious rhetoric in general, if it’s got to be there I’d just like to make sure that the christianists are drowned out by the authentically faithful.

Jan 13, 2009 at 7:05 pm · @Reply · Flag

I’m afraid I fall into the “why in the hell are there prayers at the inauguration” camp myself.

Putting that aside, I’m baffled why the Obama team wouldn’t want to take credit for fixing a mistake…could it be because they’ve done it before, during the primaries in South Carolina when Donnie McClurkin was asked to take his ex-gay song and dance routine on tour for Obama? When that choice was questioned, Obama also pulled out the “inclusion” card. Days later a gay minister was added to the program.

Deja vu anyone?

Jan 13, 2009 at 7:36 pm · @Reply · Flag

too damn little
too damn late

Jan 13, 2009 at 10:33 pm · @Reply · Flag

Join with the LA Chapter of The World Can’t Wait! and say “No Common Ground with Christian Fascists like Rick Warren!”

What: Protest Christian Fascist Rick Warren. Wear a ***pink triangle*** to symbolize the historical precedent in Nazi Germany of his anti-gay message. Also, wear orange, the color of the prisoners’ jumpsuits in Guantanamo, to denounce torture, war, and theocracy.

Where: Saddleback Church, Location: Saddleback Church in Lake Forest (southern Orange County) – 1 Saddleback Parkway, Lake Forest, CA

Who: Initiated by AllOrNotAtAll.org. Contact World Can’t Wait at 213.924.8571 or worldcantwait_la@yahoo.com to carpool at 9 AM – it’s 1 1/2 hours from LA.

Why: “YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.” (from WCW’s original statement)

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, is a Biblical literalist. Just as some used the Bible to defend slavery, he uses the Bible to promote hate and discrimination against gays and lesbians. He backed Proposition 8, a California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages, and equates
homosexuality with pedophilia and incest. He upholds war and capital punishment while declaring abortion as murder and promotes women’s subservience to men.

Obama invited him to deliver the invocation at the inauguration. This is outrageous! Seeking “common ground” with bigoted theocrats is unacceptable! As the World Can’t Wait Call says, “That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop – you will learn or be forced to accept.”

TUNE IN on Tues., Jan. 13th, 5-6 PM, KPFK, 90.7 FM with host Michael Slate to hear Max Blumenthal and Sunsara Taylor tell the truth about Rick Warren. (online at http://archive.kpfk.org/parchi.....ichael.mp3)

Jan 14, 2009 at 12:24 am · @Reply · Flag

Why wouldn’t Obama ask Al Sharpton to be a part of the inauguration, cause this man has something to say.

Sharpton: Church uses money and power to persecute gays but ignores poverty
by Nick Cargo

On Sunday, Rev. Al Sharpton slammed major faiths for using their resources and power to pass California’s Proposition 8 while showing indifference to issues affecting Americans such as poverty, social inequality and economic sabotage. The Church, he said, was silent until California affirmed marriage rights for its same-sex couples.
Sharpton was the keynote speaker at the Human Rights Ecumenical Service held at Atlanta’s Tabernacle Baptist Church to welcome the Atlanta-based Alliance of Affirming Faith-Based Organizations, whose mission is to unite gay-friendly churches.
“The only way we are going to combat all of these other conservative organizations is with another religious voice,” said co-founder Pastor Dennis Meredith.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in particular, raised about half of a total $35.8 million in support of the voter-driven California initiative Proposition 8, currently being legally challenged after its passage last November. Church members were also encouraged to donate their time and labor. Proposition 8, should it survive, would write the language of the state’s statutory gay marriage ban, ruled unconstitutional in May 2008 by the California Supreme Court, directly into the state’s constitution.
“There is something immoral and sick about using all of that power to not end brutality and poverty, but to break into people’s bedrooms and claim that God sent you,” Sharpton told a full house on Sunday.
“It amazes me,” he said, “when I looked at California and saw churches that had nothing to say about police brutality, nothing to say when a young black boy was shot while he was wearing police handcuffs, nothing to say when they overturned affirmative action, nothing to say when people were being [relegated] into poverty, yet they were organizing and mobilizing to stop consenting adults from choosing their life partners.”
“I am tired,” he went on, “of seeing ministers who will preach homophobia by day, and then after they’re preaching, when the lights are off they go cruising for trade…We know you’re not preaching the Bible, because if you were preaching the Bible we would have heard from you. We would have heard from you when people were starving in California–when they deregulated the economy and crashed Wall Street you had nothing to say. When [accused Ponzi scammer] Madoff made off with the money, you had nothing to say. When Bush took us to war chasing weapons of mass destruction that weren’t there you had nothing to say.
“But all of a sudden, when Proposition 8 came out, you had so much to say, but since you stepped in the rain, we’re going to step in the rain with you.”
As a presidential candidate in the 2004 election, Sharpton made his stance on marriage equality clear while opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment and defending the LGBT community against what he saw as “gay-baiting” for votes by the Bush campaign. “This is an issue of human rights,” he said. “And I think it is dangerous to give states the right to deal with human rights questions. That’s how we ended up with slavery and segregation going forward a long time…Whatever my personal feelings may be about gay and lesbian marriages, unless you are prepared to say gays and lesbians are not human beings, they should have the same constitutional right of any other human being.”
Another memorable Atlanta visit for Sharpton was as keynote speaker for the National Black Justice Coalition’s first annual Black Church Summit in January 2006. There, he criticized black denominations that preached against their gay and lesbian members rather than embracing them.
“It’s not a question of bringing the issue of the gay and lesbian community to the church. It’s about having an open discussion because they’re already there,” he said. “All of us know that this is nothing new. The only thing new is to have an open discussion on how we deal with it.”
“Adultery broke up more marriages than gays did,” he added, revealing that a member of his family was gay and dismissing the notion that gays were a “threat” to marriage.
The Reverend also warned against playing politics with civil rights. “[Social conservatives] will start with the gays but they will end with everybody else,” he said. “If you give the Pat Robertsons of the world the theological right to condemn some, then you give them the right to condemn others.”

http://pageoneq.com/news/2009/sharpton0113.html

Jan 14, 2009 at 1:54 am · @Reply · Flag

@Carbell:
Have to say I lean toward this sentiment. I continue to lose respect for Obama now that he’s said there will be no investigations of the Bush administration – let’s let by-gones be by-gones. And this – well, I’d have respected him more if he’d just admitted his blind spot when he invited Warren. He’s placating us; he still doesn’t get it. Here, eat this and be quiet. It’s patronizing and it sucks.

Jan 14, 2009 at 11:01 am · @Reply · Flag

I do know that Gene Robinson knew of this invitation for more than two weeks before it was in the press. He was asked to keep it relatively quiet until an official announcement was made. He told me in a private conversation and he told a crowd at the Cathedral in Miami at the end of December. Perhaps it was planned all along. Who knows?

Jan 14, 2009 at 1:34 pm · @Reply · Flag

Sharpton is a race racketeer who will sell himself to the highest bidder.

Jan 15, 2009 at 10:30 pm · @Reply · Flag