If you want some real insight into how much gays and liberals respect the concept of tolerance, which they're always preaching about, you need look no further than the latest "controversy" surrounding our President-elect.
Gay-rights advocates, the homosexual community and most liberals are in a huff over Mr. Obama's decision to allow California pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his presidential inauguration. Warren is an outspoken advocate not only of pro-life issues but also of traditional marriage.
The Human Rights Campaign wrote a letter to Obama in which they angrily assert that they "feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination." The editor of the gay newspaper The Washington Blade opined, "This tone-deafness to our concerns must not be tolerated. We have just endured eight years of endless assaults on our dignity and equality ... [t]he election was supposed to have ended that era. It appears otherwise."
Three salient points here:
(1) Messiah Man campaigned on a promise to give a hearing to both sides, to conservatives and liberals alike. The move to include Rev. Warren, whose church Obama visited during the campaign. To have Warren speak on faith issues, in the inauguration ceremony is a fig-leaf to conservative Christians and is, thusly, a classic Obama tactic.
(2) Mr. Obama and Rev. Warren share many thoughts on social justice. Like the President-elect, pastor Warren has not embraced fiscal conservatism and is an advocate for a government-led war on poverty.
(3) Mr. Obama opposes same-sex marriage, and this fact was public knowledge during his campaign. While his presidency will no doubt be the gay-friendliest to date, Messiah Man will not likely back down on the issue of gay marriage. Unfortunately, for most gay advocates, that is not good enough. (This common knowledge of Obama's stance on gay marriage must surely be the reason why he received fewer votes from gay voters in 2008 than did John Kerry in 2004.)
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Les Slater
"Obama was demonstrating tolerance " true tolerance"
Of bigotry.
2 - zingzing
obama's going to stand face-to-face with this man as he is inaugurated as president. what kind of spit in the eye is that? unfortunately, the more crazy portion of the gay-rights and liberal crowd is unhappy about this wonderful opportunity to rub the stupid conservative face in the mud. i guess they don't realize that irony is a wonderful thing.
3 - Tilden
There is a difference between tolerance and appeasement. Perhaps you should ask some of your neighbors over in Britain about it. How would they feel about having an outspoken supporter of Mosley-style anti-semitism give the benediction at the next Coronation? Inclusive, no?
Rick Warren has vocally opposed the fundamental human rights of gay and lesbian Americans and actively worked to diminish the rights they already have. Would it be "tolerance" to have a White Supremicist at the Inauguration? How about someone (and again, millions believe it) who works hard to strip woman of their rights to vote or own property because that woman are property of their father or husbands?
How about adding some at-least at-par reasoning to that "superior" writing?
4 - Zedd
"Would it be "tolerance" to have a White Supremicist at the Inauguration?"
Its not the same thing. Stop the over dramatization. It diminishes your position.
Mark,
The picture looks good. You looked sorta under the influence before.
5 - bmorejoe
I posted this on the Obama site. Rick Warren is the intolerance meister, I am just defending myself and my kin.
"Rick Warren literally snatched away my daughters' and their moms' right to a legal marriage. Without his efforts, Prop 8 would have failed. How can inviting him to bless Obama's presidency possibly be justified? Would Obama have invited someone opposed to interracial marriage to officiate? There are many ways to reach out to the right without selling out your own people. Obama chose a different way, one that discounts and marginalizes and delegitimizes millions of people. This is a really really bad sign. It indicates that he does not see gay and lesbian folks as real people with real rights that are being violated.
I am a straight white 60 year old male. Like millions of others I have been more excited by this campaign and by Obama than by any other campaign and candidate in my lifetime. Until now, I am sorry to say. To all you folks who are saying "oh get over it, let's move on" - sorry, it does not work that way - can't move on if you cannot even see us as people. I say "us" because what Obama may not realize yet is that GLBT folk are NOT isolated. They have friends and families. However many GLBT there are, multiply that by ten to get an idea of the community. So no, this conversation is not going away."
6 - Greg
Your logic makes no sense. Expecting tolerance from a group of Americans whom you do not treat as equal is an absurd notion. Tolerance is a lot like respect, a two-way street.
7 - Les Slater
"Expecting tolerance from a group of Americans whom you do not treat as equal is an absurd notion."
But the group that Obama belongs to gets more than their share of respect. Skin color is not what defines Obama, it is his social/economic position.
"Tolerance is a lot like respect, a two-way street."
And you believe Obama respects the majority of people in the U.S.?
8 - Linguist
Others have already expressed my sentiments rather elegantly. But let me try my hand at it as well.
It has become fashionable, it seems, to proclaim that those defending their lives and their loves are "intolerant" of those who wish to harm them.
That isn't "intolerance". It's self-defense. Would you expect a Jew to "tolerate" someone who worked hard to enforce the Nurenburg laws in the 1930s, or a a Black man to "tolerate" someone who prevented him from voting?
This is about people's LIVES. It's not about a political position. It's about disinterested parties voting to prevent innocent people whom they generally do not even know from protecting their most precious relationships. That's vicious, it's cruel, and it's intensely, intensely immoral.
I not only expect gay people to fight for their rights. I expect ALL who truly care about morality to fight for the least of us, including our gay family members, friends and neighbors.
It makes a mockery of the word "tolerance" to suggest that fighting for one's rights shows one's "intolerance" of 'the other side of the argument'.
There IS no "other side of the argument" when it comes to one's rights.
9 - Karl
No on has to tolerate writing discrimination into the constitution for any issue or any group of people.
10 - Zedd
Could a gay person explain why an acceptance of civil unions and not marriage for gays that means you are intolerant?
Explain by defining the meaning of marriages vs a civil union.
11 - Les Slater
The state should have absolutely nothing to do with sanctioning any marriage, however if a state does sanction marriage, and 50 of them do, then we should demand that no discrimination be applied to that sanction regarding the sex, same or opposite, of the partners.
12 - Mark Edward Manning
Zedd: "Could a gay person explain why an acceptance of civil unions and not marriage for gays that means you are intolerant?"
For once, I agree with Zedd. I too would love to hear this explanation.
I think their position is probably a case of "it's not good enough; by refusing to call our unions marriage, they are making us equal but separate."
Fair enough, but the whole concept of gay marriage is going to make me announce to people that I'm "heterosexually married." If marriage no longer means solely the union of man and woman, then I will feel the need to clarify my own marriage.
It really is interesting watching the fault line in liberal ideology crack and widen here. Liberals are forced to take sides now: side with the black community or side with the gay community? Interesting times for sure.
Zedd: "The picture looks good. You looked sorta under the influence before."
Thank you for saying so. I was not "under the influence" in the last picture, but I was getting mighty tired of hearing so.
13 - Mark Edward Manning
Tilden, there is a great deal of difference between a pastor who opposes gay marriage and an anti-Semitic Islamofascist who thinks gays should be stoned. The latter is who former London mayor Ken Livingstone invited to share the podium with during one press conference a few years ago.
Sure, Ken was being inclusive but horribly stupid. The man he shared the stage with was a true bigot and ultra-religious fanatic.
Obama is reaching out to social conservatives who are a force in the U.S., regardless of whether anyone likes it or not. By inviting Rick Warren to be part of the inauguration celebration, Obama is showing he's serious about dialogue with all factions in America, displaying some clever political skills, and I think it's an encouraging sign.
14 - Zedd
Les,
"however if a state does sanction marriage, and 50 of them do, then we should demand that no discrimination be applied to that sanction regarding the sex, same or opposite, of the partners."
I am going to respond and you are going to take this wrong but you have to slow down and think first before assuming that it is a bigoted statement.
It's not discrimination if you choose not to participate. If marriage is a union between man and woman and you choose not to marry a man or a woman, it is not discrimination. Many have done it and don't like it (fathered children and all) and still proclaimed that they wanted to be with someone of the same gender. Many don't ever want to do it because they know they don't like it.
It would be discrimination if short people couldn't get married to tall people. If you come out of the closet and you choose to live as a gay person, that is constitutionally protected. You should be able to make a legal bond with whomever you want but you are not a man and a women so its not marriage. It's whatever else that we or you will call it.
15 - Mark Eden
But Zedd, the definition is what is in question. Nothing never changes; even the meanings of words.
Mark
16 - Glenn Contrarian
Zedd and Mark -
I'm not gay, but the answer is quite simple. 'Civil unions' strongly smacks of 'separate but equal', the excuse used back in the days of whites-only this or that here in America, and apartheid in South Africa.
For all - Obama did schedule Warren for the invocation...but he scheduled a PRO-gay-marriage Methodist minister for the benediction. So okay,
17 - Zedd
Les,
When you use examples that are too extreme you diminish your points. Your examples don't match the situation. Not marrying a person of the opposite gender is choice. There is nothing other than not wanting to that prevents someone from doing so, so there are no civil rights being affected.
It's like saying, I don't like peanut butter so please make it with fruit but still call it peanut butter or else I will feel discriminated against. Even if you have a peanut allergy the request is still ridiculous. You want your wish granted just to be able to say you eat peanut butter even though it completely ignores that peanut butter is not made of fruit.
We have different restrooms for different genders but we abolished restrooms that have a race designation. So yes somethings will have to be separate but equal. That it itself isn't a bad thing if it has relevance. In this case YES gender configurations in unions make us very different. Men and women make humans. Men and men don't and can't regardless of the ridiculous story of the woman with the beard who claims she is a pregnant man. Men and women unions have different dynamics because of a multitude of reasons (biological, social, etc.) that are very DIFFERENT than same gender unions. It is what it is.
18 - Andy Marsh
I used to get into this argument over marriage. But it really does seem silly to fight over a word.
It's my understanding of the word, that it can be used when you join two things together, like putting a nut and a bolt together, marrying a nut and a bolt, but it doesn't work if you try to join two bolts together so obviously, it's not gonna work when you try to join to nuts together either! They're not meant to be joined together!
Honestly, I could care less what it's called. Maybe there just needs to be a rule that you have to wear your wedding ring on a different finger if your in a gay marriage...I mean, how really really stupid can we make the argument?
Think about it, if they let every gay and lesbian couple that wanted to get married do it, there'd still be less gay marriages than divorces. Half the time marriages don't last anyway, so let's allow them in on the fun of divorce too!
19 - Mark Eden
Feed a hungry lawyer...best argument for gay marriage that I've heard so far.
20 - Zedd
Again, the word has a meaning. Like peanut butter means something or an airplane is different from an automobile. You know we have these fury creatures that live in our homes, that we love. It's sort of relevant that we label them accurately. Is it a dog or a cat. They are different and their biology is different and they have different habits because of their biology, etc.
And not half of the marriages with children end up in divorce. That is the important thing that people who make this argument leave out. Since the institution was initially established for the sake of providing a place for humans to be cultivated and for the species to expand, it's important to note that divorce among people with kids is small relatively speaking. So marriage still works.
This is really silly.
21 - Andy Marsh
Regardless of the numbers, there'd still be more divorces than gay marriages, even more divorces among couples with children!
Let's be real here, how many gay marriages do you really think there'd be if it was legal?
I just think that like abortion and other issues that don't really directly affect me, I don't have any business messing with it.
Why does anyone that's not gay or lesbian even really care? If the state you live in decides to legalize gay marriage how on earth is it possibly gonna affect you personally, unless you're gay or lesbian?
What, you might have to qualify your statement? I'm married, to a woman! You might have to explain to your children why that man is in that hospital room consoling his partner...don't worry, lie to them, tell him or her that those two men are brothers or something stupid like that...
Yeah the word has meaning, but look at peanut butter, Skippy is peanut butter, Jiff tastes like shit! They're both supposed to be peanut butter, but one sure doesn't taste like what I think peanut butter should taste like. So, because it doesn't appear to be what I think peanut butter is supposed to be, I'm gonna call it something else...
I just don't get it man!!!
22 - Zedd
"Let's be real here, how many gay marriages do you really think there'd be if it was legal?"
I have never heard anyone say that this is the contention. The number of marriages.
Its just that marriage is what it is. It's very important, regardless of the flippant comments about it. It is the most important institution. It is already in trouble....
Saying since marriage as it is, is in trouble, lets diminish the importance of having a mom and dad raise you. Let's say it's not all that important and make it willy nilly. That is the most 7th grade response if there ever was one.
Let's see.... Since the environment is already a mess and all, lets introduce other elements which change the ecosystem in all sorts of ways even though we don't know how they will affect the future of our planet.
Silly.
23 - Les Slater
"Since the institution was initially established for the sake of providing a place for humans to be cultivated and for the species to expand..."
Pure nonsense! It was instituted as a means of determination of ownership and inheritance. In the early phases of the institution of the family, wife and slave were both property.
24 - Zedd
Les,
Inheritance for what purpose numbskull. It was about babies. You know, the species. Making humans.
Early stages? Are you talking about when we started walking upright? I am assuming you are refering to Europe. Even then, most people didn't have anything to pass down. Bless you. You did a bad Wiki search didn't you.
25 - Andy Marsh
So, because you never heard it means it's not valid?
You really are full of it ain't ya???