I find it ironic that during the period when arbitrage and fund-managed bulk buying took daily share volumes from maybe 200 million on a heavy day to the gazillions traded today that the blogosphere has gained importance. You can say it was a historical coincidence, that it's when the technology happened to evolve, but my point would be that the street lost it's voice in the share volume. The street may exhibit a herd mentality and it may play way too short, but on the long term it was seldom wrong. I think the blogosphere has been expanding to fill that vacuum. It used to be if you wanted to really know the outcome of something, you would look to the street. Now I would look to the blogs.

The problem is, Rick Warren is where it starts. Obama is legitimizing him. Anti-gay people continue to taunt me with "Look, your Savior Barack Obama doesn't even support your so-called rights [marriage]." Symbolism matters A LOT. That said, if Obama gets down to business RIGHT AWAY in getting all the LGBT laws enacted on the federal level that he said he would, this Rick Warren thing could easily be overlooked. The problem is Obama's starting with Rick Warren before he's done a thing for us. If this were OBama's second inaugeration and we already had ENDA, the Matthew Shepard Act, an end to DADT, and federal civil unions or domestic partnerships or at LEAST the repeal of DOMA, then I would imagine this outrage would be nothing more than a murmer. But that's not the case, and with such anti-gay sentiment so prevalent around the country right now, the last thing we need is a Democratic President who continues to turn a blind eye to it.

And the problem also is that Obama is NOT going to act quickly on gay rights laws. It was reported today that Don't Ask Don't Tell is not going to be dealt with for another two years! That's completely unacceptable! We might not even have a fully-democratic Congress in two years, let alone the close to 60 Senate seats we need to repeal that piece of garbage law!

My problem with the selection of Warren is that obviously Obama is trying to send a message by his action, but I can't figure out what the message is. Was this merely a preliminary sop to the righties before he launches a major initiative to equalize rights for all? If so, then more power to him. Wish my tea leaves were more accurate.

The left blogosphere is in the process of once again marginalizing itself over a militant stand on a single issue. The issue isn't whether gay marriage should or shouldn't be. (It's clear that gay marriage is not going to be a reality anytime soon and any political leader or party who wants to stand on it will go down to defeat. And as we witnessed here in Oregon a judicial order will not alter reality either.)

The issue here is whether anyone who opposes gay marriage has any standing with a Democratic administration. Now people like John Aravosis want to turn their forums into a militant gay mouthpiece, ready to heap garbage and shout hate at Obama and anyone who defends him. Personally I'm sick of Aravosis and the lot of left wing bloggers who want to beat the drum beat of hate towards anyone who doesn't meet their standards. I'm ready for Americans to unite around those issues that unite us,like war and peace, like health care and housing, like jobs and the economy, and to dialogue civilly around those things that don't.

A pox on the poison that Americablog, Daily Kos, and Open Left seem intent on spreading. They also seem intent on making the Democratic Party permanently out of power by their militant and self-destructive rhetoric.

Folks, you who believe that Obama is secretly in favor of a policy of gay marriage need to face up to reality. He is not, and he has said so numerous times. There is no national political leader of any standing who does favor such a policy, and there is no majority support for such a policy. Until there is you are utterly deluding yourself, and apparently willing to hold every other issue hostage to this one issue. Nothing else matters except gay marriage?? Count me out. If the blogosphere believes it has substantial political capital to influence Obama or the Democratic Party to change its position, it is not in this dimension of reality, for sure.

The problem with this whole analysis is that it posits political capital as a horde of M&Ms, something that can be gained and lost and exchanged in a fairly simple way, the way properties in Monopoly are. It leads to thinking about things like "Well, if I spend it here, I won't be able to spend it there, so I better save it."

Political capital is actually much more like a muscle than it is something external like a piggybank. The more it is exercised, within limits, the more powerful and supple it is. It's possible to exhaust it, just like it's possible to exercise to exhaustion and even damage -- but the much more common problem is atrophy, where the muscle weakens from disuse.

How this model influences the Warren discussion: the piggybank model says that you make a binary choice between trying to get Warren dumped (spending some capital) or not (hoarding your capital). The better model says that every wrong decision by an elected is an opportunity to build the muscle by pushing back judiciously and either getting Warren dumped or extracting some compensating concessions from the incoming administration by threatening to organize people furious about Warren to threaten progress on something that's more important to the administration.

I'm not happy about Obama choosing Warren to give the invocation, but I'm learning to live with it. However, I don't want to wait a whole lot longer for the enactment of the rights John K. enumerated (Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Matthew Shepard Act, federal civil unions or domestic partnerships) or the Defense of Marriage Act to be repealed. We've waited and waited and waited so many years already.

It's not militant to point out that this choice sucks the big one.

Come on, Obama. There are thousands and thousands of pastors out there you could have picked from. Why this fat, greasy, repugnant one?

Rick Warren was a shrewd political move. Look how that guy has had to backpedal on things he's said in the past over this last week alone. The bottom line is that when Barack is running for reelection against whatever Christianist hate monger the Republican right wingers decide to run against Obama in 2012 has to compete with a lot more evangelicals that don't really think Obama is some anti-evangelical President than there would have been before. I'd prefer to have a President like Obama who may not actively try to promote a cause like gay marriage but certainly won't work to ban it than a President like a Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee that do everything in their power to make it not happen in their lifetime.

I sort of crack up because so many on the left think the choice of Warren means Obama is turning on their causes. He's not. It's just a political move. You'll forget who gave the invocation at his inauguration 6 months from now.

"By segmenting the evangelicals, Obama may just be bringing in those who focus on poverty and global climate change--and aren't particularly interested in fighting gay rights. "

Folks, the couple living next door to us attend a church where the whole church read Purpose Driven Life. Agree or disagree, it is a popular book in some quarters, and Warren is the author. Inviting Warren is an outreach to anyone who is glad they read that book. Are some Democrats saying they don't want the support of those people?

Elections are won by gaining the votes of "the folks next door"-the ordinary, nonpolitically active person (90+ % of the population). Warren did Obama a favor before Obama was famous by inviting him to that event at his church with Sam Brownback--ya think Warren got no flak for inviting Obama to that event?

And here's the deal. Change comes slowly. Watch the movie GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER to get an idea of what a hot topic interracial marriage was just 4 decades ago.

I have no problem with a church saying no one will be married in that church unless they pass that church's preparation for marriage class. That can lead to lasting marriages. I understand there are those who regard marriage as a sacrament and thus support civil unions but not gay marriage.

Going on a GAY MARRIAGE NOW! rant or being angry that somaeone is polite to a best selling author because his remarks were inexcusable to a certain segment of the population is not going to end the polarization which has so poisoned this country.

Seems to me that both Obama and Warren understand the power of the Beatitude "Blessed are the peacemakers".

I agree with this Posted by: Bill R. | Dec 24, 2008 12:57:56 PM

The left blogosphere is in the process of once again marginalizing itself over a militant stand on a single issue. <<

I have seen this movie before--it was what drove me to drop being involved in Democratic Party politics. HOW DARE anyone vote against a resolution in State Central Comm. which certain people had proposed--all "good" Democrats agreed with the resolution!

Except that people who had opposed the resolution still got elected to office.

The GOP made a major mistake insisting on ideological purity. If Democrats make the same mistake, it will only increase NAV registration.

I am one of those "silent" guilt by silence types according to Sal Peralta's logic.

Personally, I am tired of both loud extremes in the gay marriage debate and am perfectly comfortable with watching them devour each others credibility in the public policy sphere.

The "anti-gay" side has put its money where its mouth is and put the whole "Gay Marriage" question on the ballot for the majority of voters (which includes me) to decide the issue.

It is time for the "pro-gay" side to test the waters and put legalization of Gay Marriage on the ballot in the states.

Lets have a vote otherwise elected judges will determine the issue only to have themselves run out of office by one side for overturning the will of a majority of the voters.

I prefer the former. Some "pro-gay" advocates will act to make the latter occur.

Kevin, your inability to move past the word "God" in Sal's quotation and grasp the overall meaning reminds me of another quote:

"Can't see the forest for the trees."

But it was a cute attempt at sounding intellectual.

Yep, silly Democrats, always putting principles of right and wrong above political reality.

Why, in the 60s we foolishly threw away the solid Southern voting bloc just for a bunch of uppity dusky-hued folks who took militant stances about getting to vote and not getting lynched and stuff. And look--those Southern states continue to vote Republican to this very day. Clearly, what the party did back then was the wrong thing to do!

If those strange GBLT people knew what was good for them they would just shut up and leave marriage to the real couples! After all, do they want the homophobic Republicans to come back or something?

Isn't that what you're saying, BillR?

I think this mini argument going on over the gay marriage issue is a little ridiculous. The argument is clearly moving in our favor. In 2004 anti-gay marriage amendments were passed by wide margins (Measure 36) and potentially were the primary wedge issue that got the Republican vote to the polls and cost Kerry the election. In 2008 an anti-marriage amendment barely passed and pro prop 8 people used just about every piece of misinformation and lie to get it to pass. Plus the HRC mismanaged their anti prop 8 campaign like you wouldn't believe.

I want everyone to have equal rights as much as everyone else does. The problem that we're dealing with is that both sides have their radical elements. The fact is that gay marriage is not the status quo and a majority of the country is still uncomfortable with it.

What we need to do is educate the other side and not scream at them that they're bigots for being uncomfortable and scared of something they know nothing about.

It's strange to read about so-called "progressive" bloggers protesting the choice of Warren when they supported a candidate (Obama) who stated, repeatedly and emphatically, that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman. People, you made your bed, now Obama is making you lie in it. Please stop feigning outrage or disappointment when our President-elect sticks to the principles he was quite clear about during the campaign, in the primaries as well as the general.

Now, who are the representatives of the Neo-Nazi movement or the White Supremacy movement invited to speak at the inaguration? Where's the "inclusivity"? Why is it acceptable to promote the views of a man who's said same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy and bestiality but not the views of people who believe interracial marriage is an abomination?

Oh, could it be that there is nothing remotely "progressive" about Obama or his supporters? Karol, you out there, ready to explain how Obama's promotion of Rick Warren is somehow the GLBT's community's fault because we are all racists and not engaging in enough outreach? Just exactly how many times do we need to reach out to Obama only to be slapped in the face before that argument falls on its ass?

Please, just stop trying to pretend that Obama or the Democratic Party gives a hoot about civil rights. Be honest with yourselves. All the mock hand-wringing is quite tiresome.

"Oh, could it be that there is nothing remotely "progressive" about Obama or his supporters? "

Could it be that Obama is more moderate and pragmatic than ideological, and that I will stop the italics?

Perhaps measuring religion in terms of politics or vice versa doesn't really appeal to moderate people?

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2008/12/southern_baptist_decline_and_g.html

The brand is less appealing. After 30 years of theo-political warfare within the denomination and the culture, which has included the merciless purging of evangelical moderates and even conservatives from all Southern Baptist school and agencies, not to mention strong public support for the Republican Party and Administration, the words "Southern Baptist" carry more negatives than positives. The largest and most prominent Southern Baptist congregation in America -- Rick Warren's Saddleback Church -- doesn't even use the word Baptist in its name.

We should spend our capital first on policy making, second on policy making appointments (like the Court), and LAST (aka almost never) on honorary positions.

Just exactly how many times do we need to reach out to Obama only to be slapped in the face before that argument falls on its ass?

Would you prefer to be reaching out to the McCain-Palin Presidency?

Yeah, didn't think so.

Good answer, Garrett

Obama never was a candidate of a particular group--he wouldn't have won by such a margin that way.

I believe TA is right.

"...what my GLBT friends get wrong is that, in their pain (fully justifiable pain, i might add) they reject the right of evangelicals to be part of the political society Obama promised to build starting in Boston 2004. most evangelicals will reject Obama's welcome; Rick Warren has not, and for all that Warren is wrong about, to make the step he has towards Obama's "united states" is massive. those who've never been of that religious orientation have no idea."

But then, I had a Baptist roommate in college who was every bit as fundamentalist as S. Baptists at their worst. Maybe getting along with someone like that for a very interesting year (the 1967-68 school year--imagine all that went on then) makes me more open minded than some folks.

t.a.'s right about the futility of predicting, but I can see why the concerned are concerned. There's been a long line of issues since the end of WWII that can all be characterized by "no politician in their right mind will admit to considering it", all supported by a majority of Dems, and the party has never gone back to one of them; all are evils still. It's like a slow drip, a political water torture, one after another, always hitting right at the place where your political feelings are most sensitive, drip, drip, drip, wearing down the edges, eroding the base.

Challenging the military industrial complex, a different metaphor for dealing with the Soviet Union than a cold war, the Equal Rights Amendment, decriminalization of drugs and an end to Nixon's War on Drugs, greater Congressional oversight of the intelligence community, the EEOC charter, degregulation of the airwaves and dissolution of the FCC, resizing and reforming the post cold war military, universal health coverage, gays in the military, and gay marriage, it's been one issue after another. When you say there's no support, no majority support, you mean at large, right? Do you really mean that 51% of Democrats wouldn't support gay marriage? That's the disturbing thing. Every one of those issues probably had 51% of the Democratic base pulling for it, but it was always "we have to be real". Not one of those issues was addressed and all continue to be problems.

As to the choice of the invocation, as I've mentioned on here more than once, there were people that pointed out that Rick Warren's Saddleback Church ain't Brokeback Church. Obama's choosing that forum for his first joint appearance with McCain was panned here as a non-issue. I sure hope that none of those people are the ones disappointed with his latest ministerial perrogative. That's one point I have to disagree with those that say wait. Psychologist use the inaugural speech to do personality assessment, based on the theory that it's one of the individual's more personal statements. His choice for the invocation, given his known religious predilections, might well be an indicator that although Obama is a good man and we share his sentiments, he might not exercise them in making his decisions. This choice seems to be all about "see I'm not with a radical pastor". He's not just avoiding Clinton's mistakes with the military, he might be also avoiding Carter's "mistakes" with conscience. I've been saying that since 2000 the Democratic party decided that the means justify the ends and that they can't afford their traditional idealism. With Obama's inauguration that hypothesis can be falsified, so, it can also be demonstrated to be accurate. I'll be happy if there is nothing new to add to that list of issues, and ecstatic if I can take one off it.

Does it make me suddenly disbelieve that Obama is a genuine supporter of gays' right to marriage? NO.

Maybe there was another Barack Obama running for president but the one we’re all talking about here made no bones about his opposition to gay marriage during the campaign, as did his running mate. More than once BHO said his Christian values made him steadfastly opposed to anything other than traditional one man/woman matrimony. Unless you're accusing him of lying through his teeth why would make the above statement?

As the Rev Wright said, Obama is a politician doing what politicians do. He knows the country is opposed to gay marriage and he’s not going to waste his political capital alienating the majority of voters.

It’s not like he’s going to lose the support of gays anyway. What would they do, start supporting Republicans? He’s a smart pol who knows he has their vote in spite of the handwringing over Rev Warren. Welcome to Politics 101.

I'm fascinated by the lack of response from women to the fact that Rick Warren is not just anti-choice, but that he equates abortion with the Holocaust. And women who exercise their right to an abortion are, in his eyes, like Adolf Hitler. What a charming and compassionate sentiment. I suffered through a pre-Roe abortion and I'm Jewish. Rick Warren's comments about the subject of abortion and the Holocaust are, indeed, very personal and why wouldn't they be? But then, when you come right down to it, all politics is personal.

Obama may have made what is considered a shrewd political move, but to those of us who have heard and read Rick Warren's comments, it's impossible to believe our president-elect couldn't have found someone - somewhere- whose views on human rights issues are less egregious than those of Warren.

Rick Warren's words sound a warning to me, a reminder that not only are there those who disagree with the right to choose, but whose attitudes spew forth like venom. The GLBT community is not the only one to be marginalized in all of this, but I stand with every GLBT member, including those I love, when I say that this decision by Obama was a colossal mistake. If he wants to court those evangelicals who are like-minded on climate change and the environment, kudos to him. But to do it by having Rick Warren give the invocation is just too sharp a slap. And for those who think that after Obama makes his rousing inaugural address, pro-choice advocates and the GLBT community will be swooning and will happily forget that Rick Warren was anywhere near the President of the United States, think again.

For the last eight years, we have been told that to disagree is undemocratic. To voice dissent was traitorous. And to get along we have to go along. But I maintain that dissent is quintessentially patriotic. It's up to each and every one of us to speak up to our legislators and hold them accountable for their words and actions. And to remind them that politics is personal.

Nobody who publicly equates abortion with the Holocaust and women who choose the option of abortion of being like Adolf Hitler will ever get support from me no matter what he does with other issues. Because this is very personal, indeed.

It’s not like he’s going to lose the support of gays anyway. What would they do, start supporting Republicans? He’s a smart pol who knows he has their vote in spite of the handwringing over Rev Warren. Welcome to Politics 101.

Non-parliamentary politics, 101. If he had a coalition government, a pol would care. We've spent enough bandwidth though on the tyranny of the majority.

Steve and KC,

Thanks for your insightful comments. Beliefnet has the Warren interviews on gay marriage and abortion...loads of fun for late night.

Political capital? What exactly is that supposed to be? There are votes and there are courts and that is what you've got. If you can show votes, that's your capital, or get the courts to do for you. One can rail about justice and all that til doomsday and in the end it will be votes or courts.

Now, if I had just had my head handed to me in California in an Obama election I'd have walked away with a lesson. Scaring religion and the religious is a bad idea. I'd be real surprised if nobody got the idea that religion and gay marriage are in opposition for a whole lot of people. The idea that you're going to separate people from that stance in regards to their religion is pretty far fetched as a near time event. You might be able to persuade people that there is a difference between the State's ends and the ends of Religion and that would start by demonstrating a respect for their religion - whether you agree with it or not. I get a lot of practice at that since I do not practice any organized religion. That would put me in a distinct minority.

If anybody here cares that the 'Rick Warrens' preach that homosexuality and abortion and... are sins, you're going to have a lot of upset in your life for a very long time. That is the reality of religions, what matters is whether they interfere in the interests of the State and keeping them out of that starts by showing them that the State isn't trying to DO anything to them.

If you want to assure them that you do wish them harm, by all means go after Rick Warren, try and cut his throat. It will be remembered. If you're going to take the stance that Warren's church is undeserving of respect you sure better be an avowed non-practitioner of any orgainized religion. Personally, I'd leave god out of it entirely, but Americans seem to think it's a big deal.

I care a great deal about the issue of gay marriage, but I'm not the least upset with the Warren pick. That is for the simple reason that I like to win because that is what counts.

I'm also sure I've just wasted this piece of time...

I'm not going to shut up out of political expediency. If someone says I don't belong in his church, that evolution should have wiped me out had it existed, that I'm "equivalent" to a child molester, etc., then I will vocally object when a president tries to present that person as a moral leader for America. I would expect Jews, African-Americans, and anyone else to do the same had the bigotry been directed at them, and I wouldn't think I even had a say in whether those people should pipe down.

As insulting to LGBTs that placing Warren on the podium for the inauguration is, even non-LGBTs should be insulted by this. It should be understood that this man’s beliefs are an affront to any critical thinker. To suggest that Warren’s only “claim to fame” is his position on LGBT issues glosses over his other stated positions (e.g. Warren does not believe in evolution, has compared abortion to the Holocaust and backed the assassination of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ).

From The Nation: ( http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081229/posner?rel=hp_picks ) “Warren represents the absolute worst of the Democrats' religious outreach, a right-winger masquerading as a do-gooder anointed as the arbiter of what it means to be faithful.”

Everyone has the right, and for some it's actually a responsibility, to point out boneheaded moves whether they're made by rightwing nuts or Barack Obama. Putting it as simply as I can, Warren's a creep.

And to Carla, the political capital argument is just a bit specious. I adore your posts for the most part, but I think you're off-base on this one. The same argument has been rolled out on Obama’s nominees for Interior, Agriculture, Treasury, and the chief trade representative, to name a few.

It remains to be seen how an Obama presidency will play out, but when he or his “team” make decisions, disagreements must be aired. Blind faith in the new president’s judgment is just that – blind.

"I no more understand the need for a religious invocation at a secular political event than I do the need for the national anthem to be played before a ballgame."

Tbogg

As usual, Tbogg hits the nail on the head. Religiosity has no place in the workings of this government. We are not a "Christian nation". At least not according to the Treaty of Tripoli, which was ratified by the Senate and therefore became the "Supreme law of the land". (Article VI US Constitution)

Treaty of Tripoli ARTICLE 11. As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

It all just disgusts me, as does the constant bloviating by the talking hairdos (both in the media and the pulpit) on this subject. As the old saying goes, Lord protect me from your followers.

As mentioned above, "warren is a personal friend and the choice of speakers is a personal decision. When you get elected, YOU can choose whom to invite." True statement, but that does not mean that he can do so w/out some type of response. I am sure that many in this room would not have let Bush or Cheney off the hook for one of their "personal choices" they get to make as president.

When a decision is made like this---giving warren a place of high standing--after he helped pass proposition 8 in California--Obama should hear from us. This is a bad move. This tells me that Obama is supporting what warren and the catholic and morman churches did in California.--Yes, I know that Obama does not support gay marriage, but that does not mean he has a right to take away the rights that were given to people in California.

If we supported Obama, we have a right to say when he is making a mistake.

New poll:

Which should be the slogan of the Progressive Movement for the next eight years?

"We can disagree without being disagreeable"

"Political Capitalism: Small Change You Can Believe In."

I think maybe Dante was wrong. Perhaps the hottest place in hell has been be reserved for those who remained agreeable as their civil rights were being denied.

Let me add, however, that I think this may be a case of Kharma being a bitch... the Gay and Lesbian political establishment that was so willing to toss the transgender community overboard in trying to pass a federal anti-discrimination bill find themselves swimming alongside them as Obama's inaugural ship sails into port.

Finally, let me point out that the Reverend Lowrey, who will perform the benedicition, doesn't believe in gay marriage either but there's no outcry against him because he actually has been a "fierce advocate" for GLBTQ rights in every other issue.

I speak as an NAV and proud brother of my sister who is in a committed sam sex relationship.

Thos who rant and wail and nash their teeth over this selection of Warren merely set the bar at the same extreme idealogical level as the ultra conservatives of the past 16 years. Polotics remains at heart a spoils system with the winner taking all with a scorched earth policy and practice.

Obama was reaching out in his manner of disagreeing, yet being agreeable. Those who would force an extreme view from the left make the same errors as those who pushed an extreme view from the right. Thanks, it will just make for more NAV.

Peace to all today.

To slightly broaden the discussion, IF I accept the premise that equal rights for all is NOT an issue worth spending the finite political capital of the progressive community on, what issues are?

How about a single payer health system? NO, many of you have already said, not worth fighting for, we need to accept incremental change, Wyden system, Obama system, etc., etc., etc.

How about actually getting ALL US Troups out of Iraq within the next 12 or 16 months? NO, some of you are starting to say - including some in the Dem. congress and the new Dem. administration - we need to retain a twenty or thirty or forty thousand member "training command" for the forseeable future to "help" the Iraqis govern themselves. And we need to increase troops in Afghanistan by fifty or a hundred thousand while we are at it.

What issue(s) are so important that the left, or the progressives, or the socialists or whatever should be willing to "die for", metaphorically, figuratively or even literally?

Or when all is said and done, are we just middle of the road folks living our middle of the road lives, reasonably content with the status quo and waiting for the next election when we can trot out our middle of the road candidates to do this all over again???

Merry Christmas!

What all that wiki statement boils down to is votes. Whether it is votes at the ballot box or in Congress, is essentially one and the same. Representatives, local, state, and fed are going to measure the ballot box and go from there. There might be an absolute handful who take principle above that ballot box, but that's it.

If I've got dedicated opposition that is acting in the legislative arena primarily out of fear, I need to try to peel off those who are subject to reason in the face of that fear. You would have to go very far to find something more subject to the manipulation of fear than religion is. There is a reason it stands first in the BOR, #1. This is a political and social reality, no matter what anyone may like about it.

One of the prime movers in the Prop 8 mess was the fear that religion was under attack - true or not isn't the damn issue. Warren presents not one iota of legislative intitiative in this Invocation, but what he does present is symbolism. It is about as clear a statement of "I'm not going to take your religion away from you," as can be made. Taking 5% of that fear out of the vote would have swung CA. I don't worry about the intertubes hurting Obama's political power in general, I do see this screaming as directly counter to trying to tamp down the fear factor, I see the attacks as validating their fears.

You may not like a religion teaching that you are somehow defective, but that is done in every one of them that singles itself out as "The Way." If you propose to oppose that, I have no advice that is meaningful. The absolute hypocrisy of any Christian homosexual getting in an uproar about that is astonishing, which Muslim, Jew, Atheist, or whatever is it that gets into the Saved catagory? Not one. They are exactly as damned as everyone of Warren's homosexuals or abortion practitioners. (pick whatever religion to replace Christian in that example)

If you want to play head on collision with religion, you're going to wind up having to depend on the courts. You can try to pry religion out of legislation, but you aren't going to do that in public by assaulting religion. You aren't going to win with those who are determined to impose a theocracy, but that is not the majority of your opposition, the majority are scared of you imposing on their religion. Peeling them loose is enough for the ballot box.

Oddly, it seems that the lost political capital of this ostensibly progressive presidency is being spent BY angsty US from OUR own pockets. Win all-take all politics has been touted as not working, as a wrongheaded, dominionistic approach. Because we and the world have suffered under the possum-eyed stare of one such and sharp-toothed patrone from which this creature came, WE have called for this "change".

So let's all, non-conservatives, stop our WHINGING and deconstruction and accept the CHANGE that is here. This speaker is NOT worth the pennies we are tossing into the fountain ourselves. As soon as "we" get in, we are picking at ourselves!

The dialog should be a huge, orchestrated WASH about how we are supposed to behave in this world. A lesson to the right wingers who really WOULD be just as glad to see you dead, do not make any mistake. And since we are in power, make that the reality, and make it work.

Is the grassroots mainly patting each other on the back for starting and attending meetings already, and showing up even in the snow? Or are they considering how to radicalize their own understanding of life, work, liberty? That Jesus guy, depending upon his phase of life, would possibly have used just this tactic to nullify the toxins of hate.

Now you are faced with the worst of it: you have to be civil to these haters, and, more, you surround them with the empty force of SPACE that does not brook hatespeech nor hatred sent to the hater!

Do what you say you believe, I say. BE Ghandi or Mandela, whatever hero you hold onto.

Posted by: Chuck Butcher | Dec 25, 2008 12:01:49 PM

What all that wiki statement boils down to is votes

It also gets those types some unwanted attention .

Too bad it was arson; would have liked to have been able to chalk it up to karma. I guess after her latest State Police witch hunt she pushed someone over the edge. That's a point for the discussion, though. When personal political equity comes at the expense of constituents across the board.

Greg D: you know, what you said is EXACTLY where I have come from all of my life! But during my time in Oklahoma and at different times since I have been forced to interface, at length, with the harsh and self-righteous culture of the right. I know what is in their minds behind the veneer of Xian kindness, having been down in there and heard it as a result of being in a racially mixed marriage, a Traditionalist Cherokee family that attended Indian Baptist church AND practiced the old ways, and also as the ONLY HIV/AIDS activist proffering services and total confidentiality to ALL in that four county area.

I have heard, seen and been threatened by it all. I was living in poverty and instability, a single mother student. So I was utterly in danger to them supporting or at least not destroying me. I have heard all manner of hate speech, dialog and irrationalized thought product.

I'm coming around to feeling that so long as we ALL keep doing this the way we have been doing, it will continue exactly as it is. Laws of Thermodynamics and all that, equal and opposite force. I haven't the hubris to think I know what we should do, but I do know from NOT having existed in a stable, homogenous (in thought and belief, not in skin colour and spiritual ideation) for most of my life, we cannot continue strictly flipping what "they" do. "They" see us as we see them. and that is a fact. It's a fact. The hate mail in my inbox as a result of posting a comment on neo-nazis now using the Iraqi beheading tactics brought me a cascade, unexpected of frightening hate mail up to yesterday.

We have to get real about who is wishing us dead. Simply making them "suffer" under OUR yoke for however many years before they wrench it back into THEIR hands will get us nowhere, nowhere. And with great pain in my soul, I want to see us go somewhere.

At long last: somewhere.

Greg D, I SO resonate with you. ALL of my years I've stood up, spoke, written, worked and Struggled for all that you bespeak. But we have to find a new way. We can conciliate to humanity while not being conciliatory to that which is objectifying of others. Can we find the way?

It is about our personal lives as well. As I face weekly in ki gung the merciless exposure of my Ego's doings, I feel that I know nothing of how to make a new way. And yet, for life to go on, it must be done.

I think Obama gets that. He has faced this murderous hate and rage all of his life! He knows exactly the beast we face. Try to remember what Jimmy Carter did to the electorate when he was sworn in as Guv -- that was a peach of a speech, telling it to them that he would not tolerate or give a home to all that they thought he would further! That was a cool moment. We don't know how many Jimmy Carter moments we have in store, and, also, just how many reconciliation and conversion moments we have in store. I hope, though.

btw, i should have made clear i can only repeat what GLBT friends tell me; i haven't experienced it, so can only repeat 2nd hand. yet i've had enough of other kinds of abuse and marginalization in life to have enough of a clue to empathize. i try to avoid, at all times, telling people they are wrong about what they feel (that's the height of arrogance and stupidity). but i do not believe for one moment the choice of Warren for a prayer is Obama rejecting GLBT. sadly, until he takes office and actually does something of substance and not symbolism (as importance as symbolism is), we'll all be just stuck here with what we feel and our lips a-flapping at one another.

Try to remember what Jimmy Carter did to the electorate when he was sworn in as Guv -- that was a peach of a speech, telling it to them that he would not tolerate or give a home to all that they thought he would further! That was a cool moment.

He was in rare form at that period. My favorite is Hunter Thompson's retelling of his "Law Day" address (The Great Shark Hunt), when he dedicated a picture of Dean Rusk in a campus library. I remember one of his lines was that most of what he knew came from Bob Dylan and being a nuclear submarine captain. This is the actual speech, and recalls what a gem he is. You're not going to hear Reinhold Niebuhr and Bob Dylan in the same breathe and then go onto a paragraph entitled, "Justice in a Sinful World" too often from a politico! Of course HT was making a nuisance of himself asking why the artist didn't paint Rusk with blood on his hands. Supposedly it almost didn't happen because Ted Kennedy wouldn't give up the dais.

Now there's a different interpretation of how to use the political piggy bank. Don't have one. Spend it immediately and beg for more tomorrow. Very ascetic.

Yes, ZaraThu, yes.

THIS is aligned with my background with the habitues of The Living Theater. Kamikaze Art indeed. The Piggy Bank Sutras. Hah.

Folks, I had been wondering about the tone of that 2004 speech and whether it reflected on this issue, so I went back and read it. Obama talks about E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one. He quotes "we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal".

He also said this,

"The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an "awesome God" in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States."

I have heard that there are rural/small town gays who hate having gay marriage come up in places like SF because it just makes life difficult in their lives. Warren is not the first public figure to say something which insults some who hear it (I can think of Democrats who have said things which just as gravely insulted some other Democrats, although not necessarily on this issue).

The huge victory was not won only by big city voters who worry about the feelings of any particular group--be it the gay community or any other group. There is a high possibility that there are people who read and liked the book PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE by Rick Warren who voted for Obama.

This is only a prayer, folks. Hopefully, Warren will learn from the reaction to his choice and give a prayer which includes all people in this country.

Have a little faith in Obama. He is taking office in a time as dire as FDR in 1933. There are big problems to solve (2 wars, financial meltdown, high unemployment) which need to be dealt with as soon as he is sworn in.

No one is telling any gay rights supporter to sit down and shut up--if you want to tell everyone you know that you are disappointed in Obama, that is your right. But I happen to agree with TJ on this:

That said, I agree with Carla on this one: this isn't worth making an important statement about, for a couple of reasons. First and most obviously, warren is a personal friend and the choice of speakers is a personal decision. When you get elected, YOU can choose whom to invite. Further, what is the practical impact of the choice? Zero. Not inviting him would have had no effect on gay rights; inviting him won't stop the inevitable passage of those rights in more states as we move forward.

Priorities, people!

I support equal rights of employment, housing, inheritance, hospital visitation. But I also support the right of religious people to say marriage is a sacrament. It may take a court case (like Loving v. Virginia for interacial marriage), but will dissing Warren and removing him from the inaugural program help that day come any faster? I don't think so.

Let Obama have his symbolic moment (Warren invited him to Saddleback Church back before Obama was famous--could Obama just be returning the favor?). A diverse group of people elected Obama in a landslide. A diverse group of newly elected officials are about to be sworn in from Sam Adams as Mayor to the legislative and federal level. THEY will make the big decisions, not someone who makes a ceremonial opening prayer. Do you remember who gave the invocation for Carter, GHW Bush 1989, or Clinton 1993? If not, don't make too big a deal out of this. You never know who might be out there saying "I didn't vote for Obama, but the guy's got guts/class to have Warren do the invocation, and I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt".

It's good to see that some Democrats are concerned about anything related to progressive change. Too bad, however, that those whose issue of greatest concern has been violated are not equally outraged at Obama's postions on Palestine and Lebanon, changes in Iraq "withdrawal" plans, pay-or-die health care, increases in militarism and military spending, bailouts for the rich, nuclear, "clean" coal, corporate crime and dominance, etc.

Your savior (not the one whose birthday is celebrated today as a result of the attempt to obviate the real pagan origins of the holiday) will continue to betray you in reward for your continuing worship at the altar of Moloch.

What sphinx of cement and aluminium bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?

Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

Welcome Back Harry. Now I don't have to go over and visit Vlaams Belang to get my daily dose of fanatical rage.

I was getting tired of having to do all that traveling to encounter pugilistic contrarianism.

You return to public service!

Obama, the President-elect, publicly stated that he was a fierce defender of equal rights for the Gay/Lesbian community. The President-elect just said this. Are we celebrating that a President said this for the first time in history? Do we celebrate that the President-elect has the audacity to make such a declaration? No. How stupid can we be?

Rick Warren is a symbol of all that is wrong with the Christian Reich without being totally out there. There are more exteme pastors then he. We all know who they are. But putting Warren up there for us to challenge has been a gift to the GLBT community. Seriously! We get to discuss this issue practically to the exclusion of all else. It has come screaming out of the closet because of Obama. It holds center stage. The debate is in the steet. Celebrate that!

Here is what we need to hear though. A decent discussion of why same-sex couples should be entitled to the benetits of a legal marriage would be useful. Why it is wrong to oppose loving couples the opportunity to marry would be useful. It would be useful to hear what the GLBT community is missing by not having this right.

Obama has given the GLBT the stage for weeks prior to the inauguration to make their case. This is an opportunity for real voices to express their desires in human terms. The GLBT community needs someone to write their feelings down in a way that transcends the differences between heterosexuals and the individuals in the GLBT community in a way those people can hear them. No, there are many who will not hear anything spoken, but there are those in the fringe that will, and those are the ones to reach...now. The stage is set for transformation and it can be had. Screaming at each other and disowning Obama will not endear anyone to the GLBT causes. Talking rationally from the heart will. I know these people are out there. now is the time to here from them. Yes we can!

GregorZ: yes, the time for ActUp is not just now. Unless ActUp takes a radically zen and human approach. In your face has been the mode from the "opposition".

Read your Buber. Take out those cheesy 1980's Transactional Analysis paperback books. And take it seriously.

Speak as humans in human terms. Resist the temptation to flip, to dehumanize. Stay relentlessly human.

MAKE it into a Jimmy Carter moment! Good one.

I think you're right, Carla. In politics you have to pick your battles--focus on the important, then fight to win. Making a ruckus over the Warren invocation issue is just a waste of political capital.

In my view, Obama's decision to put the spotlight on Warren was brilliant. That, plus his cabinet and senior official selections in general, illustrates that he really means it when he says he wants to reach across partisan divides. That's real change, and we could have used a lot more of it in the past.

Maybe Obama can eventually teach those who lurk on the extreme ends of the political spectrum that we're all in the same boat. We'll get further, faster if we all row together.

Tom C. and others. I understand the "pick your battle" argument. At the risk of repeating myself, what battle(s) ARE worth the left using all their political capital and "throwing themselves on the grenade" in order to try and achieve a particular result, win or lose. If not equal rights for all, what? Health Care? The War(s)? Food Policy? The environment?

The longer I wait without an answer to my question, the more I assume that for most of you, the answer is NONE. If that is the current position of the "progressive" community, I suspect that Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the Kennedy brothers and those 4 dead students in Ohio are turning in their respective graves.

Merry Christmas.

Does this conversation seem a bit moot to anyone else? Nobody can realistically expect bloggers not to blog about whatever they're angry about. That's what bloggers do. The larger media are simply reflecting how this is burning up the blogosphere. And there's no way to just make people not be legitimately angry about this. So, what, really, could be done about this even if we agreed something should be done about this?

The problem I have with choosing Warren is that this is a symbolic gesture, and symbols are powerful. Warren's words, regardless of how one might parse them, are homophobic, and words lead to action. Ask Matthew Shepard. He could have chosen numerous others for this symbolic gesture, but he chose a man of hate. Fine, he cares about the poor...as long as they are not queer. Why reach across other aisles and invite David Duke as well as some of the business leaders fucking over workers in New Orleans, and maybe even some of the folks who run the tomato farms on which the Immokalee pickers work--you know, the ones who beat the shit out of these workers. After all, it's probably good politics.

And while we are into letting Obama have his symbolic moment, can I have mine? Can I put up swastikas about town? Can I put up signs outside the Day Laborer center reading "Wetbacks Go Home!"?

After all, apparently all I need say is, ""I didn't vote for Obama, but the guy's got guts/class to have Warren do the invocation, and I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt". And I can fill in all the various associated names above in lieu of Warren, and all is no doubt well.

Greg D, all due respect, I think you are missing the point. Obama did not win 365 electoral votes (who was the last person to do that?) and get 8,538,559 more popular votes than McCain by being the candidate of "the left". That term is a construct which ignores the folks in the middle (by some estimates, over 50% of the population) who are sick and tired of political labels, they just want problems solved. And yes, in a roomful of 100 people, those people are allowed to list their top priorities any way they wish--and if your favored issue is at the top of some lists and the bottom of others, that's the breaks.

Years ago, a Democratic candidate campaigned against an incumbent by vocally reminding everyone that the incumbent was trying to fly using only the right wing---and lost the election. Someone recently said "I don't believe in political labels like right wing, I want to be the whole bird". That's like the person who says they don't see the left or right side of the road, they see the whole road.

Amazing things happen when people meet across the political spectrum to accomplish things. I remember hearing a story from the 1990s when so many Clinton nominated judges were getting held up by the Republican Senate. But then Orrin Hatch met one nominee and said "I really like that person and will work hard to get that person confirmed". Whatever one thinks of Hatch's voting record on many issues, that was a good thing he did. THAT is what many people mean when they talk about "choosing battles". Would it have been better to have publicly lambasted Hatch's voting record if it meant that judicial nominee was never confirmed?

Which is why I am sad when I read statements like "what battle(s) ARE worth the left using all their political capital and "throwing themselves on the grenade" in order to try and achieve a particular result, win or lose. "

Any group could throw all their political capital at an issue, without checking where all the newly elected freshmen stand on that issue. If the freshmen have other priorities because of the communities they come from, throwing political capital at them won't change those priorities. Calmly discussing the pros and cons of particular legislation would be a more intelligent approach.

A friend of mine was an elected official who worked his way up into a position of authority where he thought he could really do some good. But having won that leadership position, he sometimes likened the process to walking waist deep through gravel. That's the reality of politics from the inside vs. potshots from the outside.

Another friend didn't like flat "would you have voted for or against that bill ?" questions because it depended on the circumstances. " Would I have voted yes if by doing so it moved an important project along or killed an awful project? Darned right I would have!".

That is called the pragmatic approach. I'm a pragmatist, not an ideologue. I'd rather advance a cause even if it meant being polite to someone I didn't always agree with than "throwing myself on the grenade". But then, I've had the experience of working on a team which accomplished what was supposed to be impossible. We did it with dogged hard work and not giving unnessary offense to people who might be able to help in the cause---even if we disagreed with that person 90% of the time.

It is a philosophical difference. I know the polarization of the last decade has made some people believe it must always be us vs. them. But that was not the message of the 2004 Obama keynote address, and it seems to me that anyone expecting Obama to be a polarizer in order to make "the left" happy hasn't been paying attention these last couple years.

Ron Eachus has a good column on this issue. If you don't know the name, Google it. He's been in public life in one form or another for most of 4 decades, and most people here would agree with some or all of the stands he has taken on issues important to him.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20081223/COLUMN0703/812230324/1001/NEWS

Another way to look at this is not in terms of rational-actor/economic theory and the microeconomics of opportunity cost ("Gee, if I spend this political capital today, I might find there's something I wanted more later ..."), another way to look at it is puppy training, as PEBO is supposedly going to find out soon.

Politicians are very much like pound puppies. When you go to pound, you will find scores of them, all looking longingly at you, hoping you will choose them. They will each try to catch your eye and to bond with you, and you will probably pick your favorite in a few seconds, no matter how long it actually takes you to make your final choice.

Once you get said puppy home, the real learning begins, as the puppy starts to train you and you, if you are clever and determined, can start to train the puppy.

Anyone isn't willing to discipline a puppy when it pees on the carpet of its new home is going to have a long, sad career as a pet owner, just like people who aren't willing to assert themselves when dealing with their elected officials are making themselves ripe for abuse.

There are a lot of schools of thought about how to do your part of the puppy training successfully, but the one that seems to have the greatest success average is to wildly praise all correct actions and to resolutely ignore all incorrect ones and to refuse to allow any positive associations to form between bad behavior and your conduct. You don't scream, you don't shout, but you definitely do not allow there to be any doubt that this is not behavior you want repeated.

With the Warren thing, one form of this might be to decline the invitation to any inauguration festivities and, of course, to refuse to contribute any funds to them. Simply RSVP saying "I cannot possibly feel welcome at an event where Mr. Warren is a celebrant, we look forward to celebrating your election at another time."

Jamais: you make a limp, poorly-hidden reference to the 3/5 compromise.

Are you really, honestly likening Obama to people who allowed a black person to be considered 3/5 of a person?

Seriously?

And while you are at it: anybody care to give a shit about the native population who were mentioned exactly ONCE during this entire process, that I can see in the media? It was in the last ten days that I heard the very first mention, one or two sentences, of natives.

Talk about being told to sit down and shut up, stand back and wait some more...............................

How pointless! (Don't want to re-post).

As to the "give him a chance to only look like he's lurching to the right; it's really a double-fake", how about a deal? I'll wait until after the inauguration to judge his actions and you wait until after to start the spin machine. Deal?

I appreciate the motivation expressed in the post's title, but, as written, it should have been entitled, "Emptying the piggy bank of political capital: Rick Warren isn't worth it." Very nearly everyone that thinks it's not a big deal is a regular contributor and everyone that thinks it is isn't. That doesn't seem to be a difference in the expression of honest opinions, but marketing a product that consumers are iffy about. It's definitely not a discussion. That's also where a lot of off-topic posts come from. "This is pointless; I'm going to bring up something that matters", and you get all kinds of irrelevant but important issues being commented on.

I think that's where the angry adult posts come from. It's fine to say you're a Dem blog, out there to increase the party's fortunes. When you say it's a place for progressives to have open debate, yet the consensus is almost always "the Party is taking pretty much the right tack", you make people like Harry kerschner, Jiang, Bill Bodden and others you like to call trolls, foam at the mouth. It's getting to the point where it almost seems that one of the goals is to torment real progressives. Let's at least get one thing right about the term troll. A regular poster cannot be a troll. Make up a new word for "outside the in-group", but a troll is a drive-by poster trying to elicit a reaction from a targeted group. How about "progressive"?

Now, explain to me why keeping the worst House Majority leader of all time in her position IS worth your political piggybank and you'll see why progressives roll their eyes at these discussions.

"Emptying" doesn't really say "let's have an unbiased discussion", does it? Fighting a sweaty POS would use up ALL your capital? That's Nancy Pelosi speak. Read her discussions about how much political "a" we can get done for cost "b" and you might think Carla writes her stuff. Basically it comes down to we can do the same things, but in a Democratic Party way. We have to spend our rhetoric on describing how it's Change, because it really isn't. Real change is too expensive politically. That's why we were in the wilderness. That's what Bill Clinton understood. Only a fool Nader supporter would compare a mental image of the desired outcome to what we accomplish. Grow up. You can't have anything different.

I don't know why I'm worried about this crowd putting mandatory carbon controls on anyone. Let's celebrate! . Change? Nope.

Corporate Amerika has figured it out. When you want no change, you put in a Republican. When people demand change, you put in a Democrat and blow smoke up their ass. When they can't take it anymore and demand change again, you put an "outsider" Republican in. When the outsider Republican turns out to be a looney tune, you start over with a Demacrat. Demicans and Republicrats all! Start the spin cycle. Four years from now when both parties are kicked to the curb, I'm sure you'll be blaming the unmanagemable situation your were left with. Funny thing is, I don't remember one word, not one word that way during the election.

Thanks, JK

If it's not a big deal, why is Rick Warren pulling out all the stops on a PR blitz to defend himself? He seems to think this is a big deal.

Jamais: the rest of my question was serious. Care to spend ANY of your energy caring about some others who have yet again been completely left out? Some Sundown Law-Abiding for anyone?

:).... I took on the entire Cherokee family I unknowingly married into about their brazen and hillbilly homophobia. These were serious, serious people who do unspeakable things within the family, including acts of very very long-sighted vengeance. After I'd stopped hoping or even thinking for such, a few of them changed in the wake of my passage through their dominion, as I left. It was a combination of my AIDS work, my ActUp work, my work in domestic violence and crisis intervention.

Now my son, the next generation, and beloved, is taking it/them on. Because in the children it is as if nobody in that parent-generation had made any shift. Incredibly, to a child, they were just as vapid of thought product, just as blind of stoic poor people patriotism, and virulently homophobic all over again.

Remember bloggers, this is not enemy territory here. You vex and spite here on home ground!! I stand in awe at how this little family fights among themselves - heh. I'm working with skunks and what they teach a person to be this year, and the thing I'm getting the hang of is the understanding of the subtle concept of respect.

The most obvious thing a striper cat can share is that skunks never use their weapon on each other or within the family or in the family dens. They save that specifically for people who are not skunks.

Pat thinks that this may not be an actual betrayal, but instead a tactical pseudo betrayal that will be redeemed in the future by accelerating the move toward total equality for GLBT people under the law. I think Pat may be right in assessing Obama’s long game.

The more important consideration, though, imho, is whether or not this tactic will work. I don’t think so.

I doubt that Obama has any intent to throw me and other queers under the bus. I trust that he has our best interests at heart. I think all the outrage at his apparent abandonment of our quest for equality is misplaced. But I also think that he has made a tactical error in believing that he can, as Pat says, “foster an overall slightly less insane debate over gay rights…” There has never been a debate on gay rights with Evangelicals. They have it on divine authority that they are right, and that’s the end of it. Period.

The (attempted) polite surface conversation seems to be a policy debate among people who disagree on the definition of marriage. But drill down a half inch under the well parsed and (attempted) polite talking points of the famous bigots. Have some unrehearsed plain talk with an average Joe or Jane who admires Warren. In their most candid moments you will find out what’s really going on. They think of me as someone who is a vile, infectious vector, looking to rape their children with the protection of government programs. It says so in their reading of the bible. From that frame of reference there is no debate nor need for any.

I could be wrong, but again, I don’t think so. If this is as shrewd as he gets in helping me, I don’t see any hope to believe in.

Jamie, you are absolutely correct. I am telling you, I spent a little bit of time over in vicious Right Wing land last week, and remembered why I never even look there anymore. The rage, hate and actual violence in those hearts literally makes me ill. I wandered over to revisit the blog of an infamously Right Wing Flemish group once admired by a sweetheart of mine, to find it even more-developed and attracting haters from all over the world, most floridly and actively from here.

I have found varying degrees of it in my time in conservative regions of the nation and in my walk into and out of that (for me) hell. It was worth my life or safety not to piss someone off by being identifiably me for a long time.

oops: when I am responding to someone typically I accidentally type your name first... and then have to catch me and erase and put me in. Oops! Sorry Jamie!

The point is not about the vicious right wing fringe which may or may not be 15% of the population anymore.

There were white people who voted for Obama because they wanted to live in a country capable of electing a black president.

My guess is (given that it is a best seller) that there are people who voted for Obama but were also readers of Purpose Driven Life and thus see this as a step towards the center.

The path of civil rights is never smooth. Back 40 years ago it was a big deal to have a black soloist in a white church, or even to have a famous black person who had recorded an album of hymns to walk into a white church as if he had a right to be there.

I think Obama realizes this and is trying to make a small step.

There was a scene in West Wing where there was a discussion of gays in the military and the black Chair of Joint Chiefs walks in. He talks about the argument that gays disrupt the unit and that the military is not primarily supposed to be an agent of change. Then he says, "Trouble with that is that is what was being said about people like me not that many years ago. Blacks shouldn't serve with whites--it will disrupt the unit. Well, it did disrupt the unit and then the unit changed. I'm the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--beat that with a stick!" and walks out.

I'm sure a biracial president realizes that opinions change slowly. Heck, with what Warren has said, having him stand on the same stage with anyone who even supports equal rights in jobs and housing for gays may be a big deal for some people.

DEMANDING that Obama not have his own choice for anyone in the inaugural program because it makes a particular group uncomfortable is not going to advance anyone's civil rights.

KC - you took one out of my books that pissed everyone off here during the campaign!!! Good one, holding ME accountable for my rhetoric! I relentlessly used the media watch orgs to vet BOTH campaigners for shadyisms and outright lies, and continuously blathered on behalf of not being so Orwellian in our chorus of joy... to hold Obama accountable on the same level as we relished holding the R's accountable. It was met with silence or disdain. Hahahahah... And now you are after me with my own brickbat.

:)... Look, I am of divided mind. My LIFE in advocacy and interventions has been all about GLBT. The last serious relationships I had were NOT your mainstream boy/girl lovematches. :)... but I"m trying to open my mind now to something -- that politics, like ceremony, might have a very very longview working to it. I've learned to hold my thoughts, judgements and tongue in ceremony, as usually the medicine is so deep and subtle in its conformation and workings, there is no way I can "get it" unless I am still and patient.

I am absolutely divided on this. I think part of the trouble is that the reportage is inflammatory on this. There are NO reasonable dialogs on this being reported. Only numbskull Arctic Blast 2008-type coverage.

So why don't we put together a brief, tight, well-written missive to Mr. Obama telling him how this plays for the disenfranchised? Let's find a way to put it on the web, let's circulate it, and get it sent.

Kari is in the business - surely he knows how to make sure it's caught on the google and dogpile search engines? Let's define the dialog for ourselves with a tight and orderly treatise. NOT ranting bombast and vitriol.... and not laying down to take it as oen of the stations of our cross, either.

Yes it is late, but better late than never, eh? And then follow up with a careful, focused dialog that targets substantive discourse and eschews vituperations. WOrk this thing.

Dunno.. something. I am squarely divided. Part of it is that I have zero faith in the process ultimately, that I can make any bit of difference, adn this may just be the beginning of somethign else I spoke to ALL the time up here: stop being such Holiness true believers. Because I can tell you, when he lets you down or even betrays you, the backlash is going to be mighty, and mean.

Now we are already at the gates of that: and surely we can figure out how to use the tools at our disposal that elected him to now make him live up to listening to the heterogeneous bases?

Obama could of picked someone else just as easily. There is nothing magical about choosing Rick Warren over any other minister. I think it's perfectly appropriate for the progressive community to keep the pressure on Obama over this issue. He talked the talk on the campaign trail but when it came time to chose a minister to give the inaugural invocation, he did not walk the walk.

Four or eight years down the road maybe this will have turned out to be a minor blip on an otherwise acceptable record of achievements. I hope so. As Kos has said, "It's not just about electing Democrats. It's about electing better Democrats."

We expect Obama to be that better Democrat.

OK, UL, which minister is doing the benediction, or doesn't that matter?

And which well known minister who could appeal to those who might agree with Obama and maybe didn't vote for him would you have picked?

Or is the inauguration only to impress people like you rather than showing Obamais president of the whole country?

One hell of a lot of outrage is being directed at Warren and at Obama's over inviting Warren. Fine, Warren is a canny businessman cum preacher and a bigot; why Obama seems to like him is a mystery to me. But let me ask this: who amongst the folks outraged about Warren is spending 1/10 as much time thinking about the significance of what Obama has said and done in regards to making sure that science--not superstition--will be taken very seriously in his administration? For crying out loud, we're going to have a Nobel Laureate physicist running the Dept. of Energy, to mention just one example.

I have no love for Warren; I just don't want the flap over him to consume everyone's energy and attention.

Joel: this is the GLBT/Warren/Homophobia thread. So folks are fretting over in this thread over just that.

I may have missed it, but most of the other threads are about snow, snow, bike crashes and peace on earth/holiday sentiments. So folks are gravitating here to talk politics.

Perhaps it's time to introduce a thread or two exploring the bios of that incredibly delicious cabinet coming along.

Obama's choice of Warren is one more reason to acknowledge that the DP is a right-of-center, regressive institution, but only one more (i.e., there are lots more reasons, for anyone who cares to pay attention).

The claims that throwing Palestinian, LGBT, or native people under the bus are brilliant strategic moves that will ultimately liberate those people (if they survive) are nauseating to anyone who is a centrist progressive, much less a "leftist" (of whom there are none in the DP that I can see).

The fact that no one on BO seems to understand is that Obama was losing to McCain (and would have lost) as long as the "debate" hinged on non-economic issues. If the economic collapse had happened two months later than it did, pundits would be praising McCain for having run a brilliant campaign (and wasn't that Sarah Palin a perfect political pick?).

As it is, Obama will have to weather the fallout from the coming storm of protests about his inability to fix an economy that cannot be fixed without major structural change, and, four years from now, because of his "brilliant strategy", the present narrow political spectrum will be even more narrow, and even further to the right because of him and his worshipers.

billy the kid, KC, Locutus of Aloha, George Anonymuncule Seldes, and Greg D have it right.

A guest writer on Barbara Ehrenreich's blog comments on the Imperium. Harry will like the conclusions of this writer. I cannot say this man is wrong at all.

We all know that the figurehead changes, but rarely does the infrastructure.

Cheney and his cabal have ensured that this Imperium they have constructed will outlive whatever figurehead comes after. No doubt the Imperial structure will be right where they left it, waiting for them, tho perhaps a little worse for the wear.

http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/

Kershner: Thomas Civiletti is an enlisted member of the DP. That man is a rare beast: a thinking Leftist, if we have to use old-fashioned labels. His self-description: "I am an attack dog". Of focused intelligence when posting despite his pointy pool of bitterness come from experience. The rest of us? Middlesters, I think. Grown fat and strategic in our dotage.

I just wonder if ranting, raving and accusing him of all manner of evil and wrongdoing before he has taken office is the same as speaking up and voicing our opinions and our pain? And the only and most effective way to do that?

I guess so.

It just reminds me of a couple of things: how people act out of PTSD - hypervigilance that is sometimes borne out as warranted and sometimes internalized, self-referential terror; how pain pathways act, once thoroughly greased, to a TINY bit of pain as if they'd been delivered, again, their known maximum dose of pain....

Here is what I have been wondering all day: where is the evidence that anyone is carrying the news to him? And: is there anything anywhere in the press that shows Obama explaining his choice, speaking to this? I'm sure it will come out at the ritual, but has he made any effort at conversation before the hand?

rw has it right.

I’ve been wondering too if Obama’s team understands why this is so painful, and why the outrage. Same for many of the good people here on BO. If they/you think it’s simply because GLBT people see Warren as a bad actor, or because we all think Barack has turned against us, then I figure all is lost and my hope is gone.

rw’s thesis about the hypervigilance that follows historical (and perhaps continuing) trauma fits my situation. I’m reacting strongly because I’ve learned over several decades that fighting back hard and strong and without hesitation is what keeps me afloat. Yes it’s a horribly blunt and one-size-fits-all instrument, but you do what you need to do to survive.

I’ve also thought about Kari’s statement that “[t]he whole point of Rick Warren is to encourage evangelicals who want to turn their attention AWAY from fighting gay rights.” This is said as if that’s a good thing. I’m not sure if the analysis is correct or not, but I see Kari as having good political instincts, so it may well be. Still, this would not be an objective I would set. The choice seems to be between having (1) people who hate me and are actively fighting against me, and (2) people who hate me and are not actively fighting against me.

I prefer option 1.

I’ve seen anti-gay bigotry driven underground before, and it always come back. I would rather keep it in my sights. Given that I am convinced that evangelical leadership will never come around to believing that I am a valid person, worthy of equal rights, I would rather continue to have them keep up their bigotry, continue to marginalize themselves, and be seen for who they are by more and more people every year. That’s how it’s gone for the 40 years I’ve been watching. Why, in not much more than a few more generations, we may be getting somewhere.

I am left with a sense that the prez-elect is acting on a path that he thinks is in my best interest, while I think it is not. It’s not pleasant being patronized.

Whatever influence we on the lefty blogs have with legislators and Obama should be used for pressure on policy issues. I've tried this entire post and thread to explain why. A definitive rebuttal (IMO) simply must include why opposing Warren gets us to civil rights for the GLBTQ community.

Political scientist and historian Michael Parenti defines politics as "the art of rationally manipulating irrational symbols."

The question is not so much whether opposing Warren "gets us to" basic rights for all as what failure to oppose someone such as Warren gets you. When America yawned and kept flying when Reagan crushed PATCO, what did failure to oppose it bring? When timid lefties were afraid to stand with Feingold and oppose the fascist wet dream of the USA PATRIOT act, what did it get us?

The hottest circles in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. -- Dante Alegheri

He could have said "husband their political capital" just as well.

Hold onto your boomers

Shite! I was about to recall the birds!

Since the Stonewall riots in the summer of 1969 the LGBT community has made extraordinary progresses in dismantling our criminalization as well as laudable progress in protecting our rights. We have at this point achieved a respectable second class “separate but equal” status in the minds of significant number of Americans including Barack Obama. Fighting for full equality, marriage and military service rights, is to Carla Axtman as an unworthy expenditure of our precious political capital.

I’d like to make a withdrawal from her bank of political capital of all that has accrued on the basis of my hard work and financial support and put it into a new bank, one that will spend it on finally accepting me as a fully recognized citizen of the country of my birth.

They think of me as someone who is a vile, infectious vector, looking to rape their children

Some are even worse. On my blog I made an unflattering comment about their psychologists that teach GLB to be "normal" and had to deal with a retaliatory, evangelical troll that constantly tried to impersonate liberals, using nambla.org as their website. I guess it's just like you say. They think of it as a disease that unless they inject their treatment will end up raping their children. At least it proves that some definitely aren't up to leaving the community alone.

Carla is right--fights should be over policy. That's what makes things change. Fighting over symbolism like who gives the invocation at the inauguration accomplishes nothing positive and probably alienates lots of folks watching from the sidelines. And all those spectators have votes.

The "political capital" concept has two components: Using the power you've been given by people who voted for you while not alienating the people you need to help you achieve your goals. Until the LGBT community has solid majority support, it would be wise to use its limited political capital when and where it will have the most substantive impact.

Jackson: do you really think that harshly demonizing Carla for presenting a thought point, one among a number of considerations you and I had better hold in our thoughts if we are going to make a difference... is an intelligent way to behave in your "community"? Do you think it really presents you as the person you are - harsh, uncompromising, rigid and unable to accomodate more than a monopoint of view?

Would you feel respected or heard if you were treated as harshly for presenting facets of a complex and compelling issue/dynamic?

Didn't think so.

The most interesting part of reading this thread is the realization that Blue Oregon (or many of its contributors anyway) seem to be more interested in being apologists for the Democratic party than they are in being agents of progress. I think I understand the motives of some of the folks here. I was young once and I understand the need to kiss some ass to get a job, but I feel a bit misled by the premise of this blog as being "progressive". Joe Hill was progressive. Woodie Guthrie was progressive. Robert Kennedy was progressive. Martin Luther King was progressive. Your average Democratic politician - especially post-Clinton - is hardly progressive. The fact that Repub morons are regressive does not make Dems progressive by comparison. Standing still is not progress!

How about changing the header on thge blog to "a place where up and coming members of the Democratic party gather to chat about the issues." Nothing wrong with that, and I think a much more honest characterization of the blog.

Solidarity Forever!

I don't really remember Robert Kennedy ranting emptily and anxiously. I recall a hugely penetrating and literary, deeply reference-laden body of speaking-product. My thought, or point is not that nobody should speak. But try harder to speak with substance and meaning. Instead of just railing.

Make it count. Make every word count.

And TA: I'm with you. I LIVED amongst those people, even tried my best to believe that way. I know in my bones the stoney, self-righteous, delusional implacability of the fundies. I get a whiff of the same when certain people bombast up here - my gut talks to me and tells me what is what.

Those people we are discussing would happily see a lot of us dead and ARE convinced we are indeed dancing with Satan ever more merrily as we speak. I was shaken when I heard my black coworker who supports Obama reeling off scripture prooftexts as to why this blessed event was prophesied in teh very bible. I got out of there as quick as I could. I have heard equally convinced delusional prooftexting in exactly the opposite direction.

Live by that sword, die by that sword.

TA hit that one right on the head.

Anyone know what Warren will say in the invocation?

Or is this just because Warren has said some hurtful things and therefore he should be hurt back or Democrats should shout from the rooftops that he's alienating Democrats who worked for his election?

People can change--that is how civil rights happened. That is how gay rights will happen. Yes, I believe gays are first class citizens, and that Gail Shibley and George Eighmy were excellent legislators--although there are people like Lon Mabon who wanted them to go away.

I don't think Warren is Mabon. I believe gays have the right to anti-discrimination laws, hospital visitation, inheritance and other rights.

I do not believe that if Obama disinvites Warren and every Democrat who is upset about the invitation shuns Warren and all he stands for the rest of his life that the rights in the above paragraph will happen one day sooner than if Warren gives the invocation as scheduled. Call me any name you want, I've seen change come slowly but surely in too many cases to believe otherwise.

Sam Smith has a nice analysis of Obama and Warren: http://is.gd/dF7w

@Kevin: How can you be so sure of this? What evidence do you have for this?

"Disinviting Warren won't further GLBT equality one iota. Likewise, had Obama never extended the invitation in the first place, GLBT equality wouldn't have been furthered in the slightest by that alternate reality."

Being old enough to have heard people criticize King for his refusal to be patient with bigotry, I hear clear echoes in liberals' constant fretting about upsetting the apple cart by pointing out that Warren is a hateful bigot and that there is something really wrong with honoring him. As Katha Pollitt nicely put it (reprinted in today's O), it's noteworthy that the Republicans constantly respect their base, while the organized Democratic Party seems to go out of its way to crap on its base.

Jamie... nice analysis. But I don't think you can do much about people hating. So the question is not are they being visible about their hate, but rather are they working actively to deny you basic rights? I care a whole lot more about policy and the law than about their personal feelings.

"...and aren't particularly interested in fighting gay rights."

I guess Warren didn't take a highly public stand on Prop 8. That was all my imagination.

I'd say that statement is naive but it's part of the tone of this post, which is to gloss over things to get the queers to calm down.

And don't tell me how I should feel or presume you know what Obama's motivations are. It's your theory but you present it like a fact. Choosing Warren is disrespectful to me. You telling me that's not valid is an insult.

I get the point of this post but its tone is what irks me. It's patronizing, as if we silly queers just need someone to explain how the world works and what's actually important. I'm looking for a job right now so I'm intensely aware of the bigger fish to fry. But what if Warren was some sort of real rallying point for gays and lesbians? Why try and organize other voices to advocate against that motivation? He's clearly not that big of a motivator for gays and lesbians, which makes the condescending tone of this post all the more puzzling. But so what if he was. Would it really be so harmful to whatever your priorities are that you chastise people fighting for their civil rights?

Posted by: rw | Dec 26, 2008 9:40:53 PM

Make it count. Make every word count.

A position attributed to Wittgenstein in later life was, "In the face of that which is great, one must speak greatly or be silent". Perhaps Obama didn't pick the speaker (I doubt he's a campaign donor!), and can't speak greatly, at the moment, on the perceived issue. Maybe the invocation will add a shock reference to reconciliation and acceptance with people that, after all, respect marriage more than the average American. It is the age of reality TV. ("You're thinkin' those faith based grants are over, pastor? Not necessarily; if you could be persuaded to flesh out your GLBT position in a way that is a little more progressive...") And Obama becomes associated forever with which pastor?

From the sublime to absurd, I guess. It would be a cunning plan. Maybe I'm channeling Benjamin Disraeli. Yes, that's it; "read Sybil ".

Thanks, Kari.

You say “I don't think you can do much about people hating.” I think you are exactly right, if you mean you can’t do much to change their world view.

But if this refers to not being able to do much about the influence they bring to the world, then I respectfully disagree. The thing to do then would be to foster their marginalization and wait. Statistically they are old and on their way out. That will take its own course. My hope is in young people.

Nobel prize winning German physicist Max Planck once said “…truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

Regarding your commitment (and that of others on this thread) to policy and the law, and your disinterest in personal feelings, I have a deep personal appreciation for your convictions. You are making things better for all of us and especially for my family. (I have a gay son.) I only hope that everyone who feels this way sees it as a matter of doing their part, rather than doing the only part of the effort that’s really important. I’m sure you know that policy and law does not, at first, change everything. Instead it often changes some institutional barriers to equality, while providing recourse to those who continue to be aggrieved.

At a high school in progressive Portland, my gentle 120 pound son was rolled in a mud puddle by some hefty, self described jocks, and then thrown in a dumpster that they then sat on while telling queer jokes. A teacher who saw the commotion told him that it was his own fault for some reason I couldn’t follow. Get the symbolism? Forcibly soiling someone, letting them know that they are trash, and providing no support after the fact is powerful stuff. Surely he and I will be hypervigilant to symbolic actions for the rest of our lives.

To those good people who are so effectively fighting for good public policy I say thank you. To those same people I ask for your understanding regarding to my aversion to symbolic gestures that honor bigots.

Not to undercut what I've said, but here's an example of something that may need immediate political capital. Didn't he say that if Pakistan couldn't or wouldn't take care of the border with Afghanistan that he would seriously consider sending troops?

From the Manchester Guardian today: Pakistan moved troops away from its western border with Afghanistan, amid reports that thousands of soldiers were being redeployed along the eastern frontier with India yesterday, in what would be a major escalation of the confrontation between the two countries after the Mumbai terrorist attack last month.

The points about the religious right containing dangerous extremists is well taken. Maybe the should be in church instead of acting on their hate?

Pardo had been booked as an usher at a service at the Holy Redeemer, but had not shown up. Instead, he drove a rented car to Covina to the home of his former parents-in-law, Joseph and Alicia Ortega. He had reached a divorce settlement with his wife, Sylvia, just days before. After the attack he drove to his brother's house in the Sylmar area of Los Angeles, where he was said to have shot himself.

Back to the first response and the rise of the internet...

4. If you know anything about conservative Muslim thought, you know they're even more homophobic bigots than our own evangelicals (see this: Death penalty for man accused of homosexuality, Sept 23 2008). So - for those of you who are so angry about Warren - did you cheer Obama for saying he'd meet any world leader who wanted to talk? 5. I think the GLBT communities disproportionate reaction to this comes from the terror that Obama is "throwing them under the bus". I think that fear is misplaced. Obama really does believe in the GLBT cause. He just also believes that meeting and greeting people you disagree with is a lot more effective at changing their minds than engaging in a lot of provocative bluster. But if you think that the Bush method of dealing with the world is effective, well, that's your right.

Interesting how you need to present a signal honor for Warren as simply "meeting and talking with."

Obama isn't meeting and talking with Warren. Warren isn't being invited to a conference with the President-Elect on anti-gay violence and homophobia; Warren isn't being invited to meet with the thousands of married Californians who are looking at having their marriages undone thanks to Rick Warren & Co. Instead, Warren is being elevated to a position of great honor, being asked to symbolically speak to God on behalf of the country and to seek God's blessing for the country's new executive.

As somebody said above, why not Jim Wallis?

And as for Rick Warren not being as bad as a Muslim theocrat in a Muslim country, what makes you so sure? The language and hostility to gays is the same.

Carla, I really appreciate your initial post, which I disagree with, and the opportunity for community dialog on this. We need more.

Regarding one thing you said: As has been consistently noted in this thread, nobody is going to care or remember this in six months."

The first part is true. This has been a repeated theme on this thread.

The second part, however, is either a false prediction, or a marginalization of the GLBT community. I think it would be a far better guess to say that "Few straight people are going to care or remember this in six months."

Owtch, Jamie. Really? My son is a straaaaaight man. He is not so sordidly short of content and internal expansion! I have to think about your statement. PUngeant. And reminiscient of the debates and heat going on around Obama and race!

Steven, in various places I have made ALL of the points you make. Some even in this thread. Sometimes I get frustrated that I actually present indepth AND comprehensive comprehension, but it's missed. Plain missed. I am wondering if I, too, need to open a word document, type up my thoughts, then scrub out ALL poetry and insert para formatting to save my ass and strengthen my voice!

:)

Kevin: you are bringing tears to my eyes. I fight on behalf of and work on behalf of MANY. And they NEVER leave my consciousness. I sometimes baffle the very professional, kindly, comfortable, middle roaders I work with, b/c chit chat about decorating is baffling to me... and out of my mouth pops Content... I don't do it on purpose, but THAT is always on my mind....

What I mean to say here is, I never hear anyone yelling on behalf of or speaking on behalf of those people I know back home in the many Indian Territories. And it hurts.

As a for-instance, there are hundreds of people in many quiet locales in summer seasons, who go without food and water and dance in the sun, spill their blood and keep dancing, as their prayer for each and every one of us.

They greet you with a soft handshake and a quiet voice when you come traveling to them. These same ppl usually cannot find a real job, competitive education on their own rez or protect their own elderlies from an unseasonably early cold. Unless they LEAVE their families, these reservations (that creates problems of many kinds...), or allow different corporations to rape out teh resource from beneath their feet.

I don't know. The emotions I am having are complex. It is as if I am required to resonate compassionately for every angry, shouting, aching voice out there.... and yet the voices that most nearly resonate within me are the ones that are heard when you are still, and listen, they are the wind, they are whispers. And nobody is listening to the pain of the wind anymore.

Just that one strong moment of voice from you, Kevin, it moved me. Thank you for a minute to remember. Everyone seems to want indian blood in them somewhere way back, and I mean EVERYONE!, but that's as far as it goes!

What Aravosis said. http://www.americablog.com/2008/12/who-cares-about-rick-warren.html

OK, I'll stop posting after this. I'm just thinking this thread has completely run its course. We are now down to hair splitting and scuffling. Using comparisons that do not fit (Steve's "Did you applaud him saying he would sit and talk with Islam". or close to that) in much of any way, and just general pushing and shoving.

Pretty much all that can be said for now has been said. Reconvening this specific topic after The Speeches will be interesting, don't you think?

@ Kevin:

Come now, George. Advocating the denial of marriage rights to gays is "the same" as advocating the torture and hanging of gays?

I refer to Warren's rhetorical equation of homosexuality with bestiality.

Bigotry involves dehumanizing the target group. There is no more clear expression of a wish to remove gays from the class of humanity than declaring that accepting gays as fully equal to "normal" people means having to accept bestiality.

If gays are fully human and, therefore, deserving of the same human rights as Warren enjoys, then gays deserve the right to marry a (as in one) consenting adult, just as straights enjoy the right to marry a (as in one) consenting adult. Denying gays this equality depends on being able to dehumanize them so that the majority does not object to their reduced status. Once that reduced status is attained, then what is done to them is simply a matter of degree, and is subject to change at the whim of the group in power.

Carla, I've never, ever doubted your sincerity or the degree to which you are fighting to benefit me and my family. I can see and appreciate the depth of your convictions. I did not mean to devalue anything you did or said, and tried, perhaps not entirely successfully, to make that clear. I may have some polite disagreements with you, but we are on the same side of this, albeit coming from different experiences. Finally, I never, ever think that because someone is straight or because someone is gay, they can individually be assumed to be willing and able, or not, to fight, or that they won't be cut as deeply as me on this issue.

Keep up the good work.

Kevin, you spoke to a post I wrote then ditched. That of creating fear in others at the same level as they do in us by positing only our one narrow view in our commerce here.

I was trained to speak my points and truths with use of many threads, and think that way naturally, but am too lazy to post that way. It goes to my natural inclinations anyway, but my teaching came from different "minority" mentors who sought for Grand Theories and universal truths. The only way to test those was to seek out truths other than the purest expression of your own most immediate personalization.

So I feel sometimes the anxiety of EVERYONE that THEY will be left out b/c this group or that... well, could it be that they are so anxious b/c they are afraid they'll be done and managed by the same goodhearted narrow mindedness they exhibit?

I wish much that I could see more-frequent disquisitions that include apt (and I do mean APT, not just Frankensteining something to force it to inadequately serve a point) renderings of parallels here. Always looking for parallels, corollaries in experiences and histories NOT our own,thus testing our theories and factoids against many truths, not just our one.

I almost wrote a post about what those who are not at a fixed point of the psychosexual / orientation spectrum may have to endure! :)... heh. And the fact that Jamie's pungeant skewering of all / most heterosexuals disturbed me. Why? I'm still pondering that. I have my reasons that stretch thru many cultures and subcultural sets. Wonderful!

Anyway, to speak most plainly: I think it would comfort me if I heard more posting that involved people being inclusive in their thought. Don't just go on about your own specific concern. Think broadly about others and in particular, practice Dalai Llamaian compassions in terms of trying to get inside the head of the perceived Other.

The only thing Obama can do to make me believe he is truly interested in uniting people is to reach across the other side of the aisle to Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping.

rw, I was hyper-intentional when I said "[f]ew straight people are going to care or remember this in six months." You extended this to "all / most" and that misrepresents me. I said "few". That means some will.

I assume that all / most of the posters here, regardless of orientation, who have stayed with this LONG thread WILL remember this -- for various reasons -- for some time. I had no intention of skewering anyone. I just made a reasonable and casual prediction.

assume that all / most of the posters here, regardless of orientation, who have stayed with this LONG thread WILL remember this

Given references to things like Saddleback Church in the discussion, I think that's a fair assumption! That was one that someone posted a few weeks back that no one remembered or even cared at the time, to the point that I was asked to provide citations for anyone that had objected. The point has been proven and it illustrates, I think, my belief that for every one opinion you see posted, it represents 50 that would never bother to speak up.

With regard to Posted by: Jamais Vu | Dec 27, 2008 5:32:12 PM

I know how words hurt. There is someone who posts here and listed here as a contributor who once ran really nasty primary commercials against someone I really admire. I have never forgiven that person. Years later I was visiting relatives and saw this person on TV. Just then my niece walked in and I told the whole story about the unforgivable nasty campaign. I would love to see that person somewhere with someone I know, say hello to the other person and pretend the person who offended me is not there to his face.

I understand hurt feelings. But I thought the question was about equal rights for gays. Do you not think people of color in an older generation than Obama suffered indignities? Did complaining vocally compel the Supreme Court to rule in Brown v. Board of Education in the 1950s and Democrats to pass civil rights legislation which LBJ signed in the 1960s? That should be the question.

Perhaps someone can explain to me how publicly shunning Warren and telling Obama he blew it big time before he was ever sworn in will bring respect and rights for gays one day sooner than what Steve M said,

"5. I think the GLBT communities disproportionate reaction to this comes from the terror that Obama is "throwing them under the bus". I think that fear is misplaced. Obama really does believe in the GLBT cause. He just also believes that meeting and greeting people you disagree with is a lot more effective at changing their minds than engaging in a lot of provocative bluster. But if you think that the Bush method of dealing with the world is effective, well, that's your right."

A relative of mine was hospitalized the same day that the Mass. gay marriage court decision was handed down.

When asked what I thought of the decision in the weeks that followed (esp. by those who seemed to be looking for a fight), I had this response:

"All the times I walked in and out of the hospital in the 2 days before my relative came home, I'd walk by the various waiting rooms and wonder why anyone thought committed same sex partners didn't have the right to be allowed in a family waiting room".

Generally, that shut up people who might have otherwise made smart remarks.

Warren is both clergy and a public/political figure. As the second, he is learning that every word he says will be scrutinized. "Appealing to the base" by anyone in public life can get them into trouble if anyone in the general public is offended. As the first, he surely knows the meaning of "Blessed are the peacemakers" or he would never have had Sen. Brownback and Sen. Obama on the stage at his church with him.

I am interested in what Warren actually says on Jan.20.

If anyone feels as unforgivingly angry towards Warren as I feel towards the person mentioned above (someone who hasn't held public office since losing a general election more than a decade and a half ago), I understand that level of anger. Anyone has the right to be that angry.

But I know all these years later that anger alone does not solve anything. And no one is saying "shut up and never mention how angry you are"--at least not the way I read this blog.

Is asking "is hyperventilating the best way to provide rights and respect to gays? " really the same as saying "sit down and shut up because Obama deserves unquestioning respect"? I don't think so.

And I think this is a perfectly rational attitude:

"Obama is like any other politician; I'll support him when I agree with his stance on a given issue and I'll oppose him when I don't."

My sense is that Obama has no problem with that independent attitude. It was W and Cheney who regarded that "I will make my own decisions" attitude as subversive.

Jamais:

It is starting to trouble me that the injured on this thread may seem to think they are the only ones ever injured thus? And seem to think they are the only ones currently enduring or fighting such? Let's talk about reaching across lines: it might be a view-changing thing if you seek out others who are not just like you who endure this, and compare stories, find commonalities, reduce this sick mother to the psychopathological construct it is, and then remember to mention the others you have discover3ed who HAVE been likened to bestiality-diggers etc... try it. You might still be very angry and hurt, but you might learn you are not as special as the haters want you to think. You are buying into their game, they want you to feel isolate in your experience. That is key! You are marginalized even in the expressions of your anger. OH how well I know this piece from this particular stand/place as well as some others I've inhabited in the long and adventurous journey htat has been my life.

I endured exactly what you are speaking of as a woman in a biracial marriage in Oklahoma's small towns. A man playing in the creek near us and quasi-attending to this young mother and her golden-curled, laughing little baby boy then began to utter PRECISELY that spew in a level, deadpan, disconnected fashion. Yes: animal schtupping and it's spawn. My laughing baby boy and any others like him. Would you like to hear more?

You think you have the freaking corner on this misery? Really?

Get your head out of your pitiful space and get the news: you are one of MANY MANY MANY groups the WORLD OVER targeted explicitly the SAME WAYS.

Take some classes, read some texts on the psych of marginalization, follow Malcolm X and EDUCATE yourself instead of marinating in your o so special self pity.

Good LORD.

Yes. I had a man mixing his stew of trying to hit on me with calling my baby boy and all children of "MISCENGENATION" animals, and worse. I won't stew up teh pages with this - it was sick! And I've had men say and do scary things when I as with my girlfriend. I am ok if with a man, but boy o boy...

Let's not even start talkign about the terrifying homophobia of my cherokee relations... it's pathological how this all manifests, and I've been in close contact distance with it. Not theoretical.

And before anyone thinks I don't feel this personally, the marriages of people DEEPLY beloved to me, the ones who have been cornerstone examples of what marriage should look like for my little son's eyes, the severing of this body of love, commitment and caring grips me unspeakably. I don't have words to express except those of charnel.... inadequate!

And before you think I am saying sit down and shuddup, nope, I"m not. But so far nobody has said they wrote a letter, made a call. All they are doing is badgering others on a blog. Does not seem to me to be much effective effort going on -- just complaint (rightful, and I said some of the same things) and at least soft accusations to the ones who care the most that they don't care enough!!!

So what have you done since it was announced to make formal, measurable and known the pain and anxiety you feel? To someone who matters in ways that we do not? Did you call your rep, your senator? Did you contact your city council and suggest a letter? Did you do anything but blog?

I am one of those AWFUL people who writes glowing rave letters to corporate managers to say someone did a wonderful job. Even if they only just DID their job, nothing special. Likewise, if your PROCESS is broken, I'll possibly be the one asserting in process-oriented terms just that. I find out who is empowered if they care, and who "matters" and then I try to communicate. Too often they don't give a shit. BUT - I at least took it above whinging laterally. And if enough intelligent reads on teh brokeneness of that process are received, it's possible they will reassess.

So - sorry if I burned your cockles. But I burned laterally: YES I have had my baby likened to the spawn of bestiality. I encountered something like it in Nevada too, while working in The Trades, onsite, when a man saw the full blood Cherokee man who was my mate.

I know what this darkness is. You are most certainly not alone. And we do have to find a way to bring it to a change.

I'd never heard of Rick Warren before the blow-up in response to Obama's announcement that this person would be leading the prayer. I've been reading all these comments. Many amongst those commenting have expressed most of the greater concerns I have, associated with the Rick Warren character.

Obviously, there's all different kinds of ways to look at this situation. I'd say this is Obama's way of calling bible-thumping homophobe Rick Warren out. As he stands at the lectern, will Warren be thinking, 'Hey, what better opportunity to offer a word of warning to the nation about the evils of homosexuality!'? It's always interesting to watch what happens when a guy like Warren comes to find himself under the magnifying glass of the public eye.

I'm withholding judgment on Barack Obama's choices for cabinet positions as well as his choice of Rev. Warren until I see what he actually DOES as president. He's taking the reins of a very powerful country from an absolute moron who has spent the last 8 years running the country into the ground in every conceivable way. Every single system in our country is in tatters and we need a unifying leader to get us all pulling together.

Rev. Warren happens to be VERY popular with evangelical Christians, who have generally been VERY supportive of neocon politicians for many years now. By bringing Rev. Warren into the inauguration ceremony to offer a prayer(not making him head of any policy making effort), Obama is reaching out to evangelicals around the country who, if left ignored, will redouble their efforts to elect new neocons.

Support by association is the key here. If he can get a good number of people who have not supported his presidency to see their beloved Rev. Warren in positive relationship with their new president, Barack Obama may very well neutralize the threat they pose and potentially even get them working on behalf of the poor - an issue on which evangelicals and progressives generally agree.

Will he get them to agree with the idea of gay marriage - no. But I don't think that's what he's trying to do. The fact that his choice has upset the Republicans so much makes me more confident that it is a good idea in the long-term for our country. And, if Barack Obama manages to neutralize the threat from the Republican Party and is able to have 8 years in office, I think that's the best shot the LGBT community has for real change.

The fact is, this country is fighting a war and an invasion, the economy is in shambles and we have ten years MAYBE to get a handle on climate change. There are many issues that are important that don't rise to the top of the priority list right now because of what else is on the list. So as difficult as this may be to hear right now, gay marriage and equal rights for the LGBT community are not likely going to be top priorities of the first Obama administration. But if he can get a second term, there's a real shot there for change.

He's spoken very clearly about his support for equal rights for the LGBT community. I think he's genuine, but it's going to take some time. Considering he had the political savvy to win an election when he was considered not a viable candidate in the beginning, I'm willing to use a wait and see approach.

On a positive note, if he is doing this to reach out to the evangelicals, it may make his strategy even more effective if the LGBT community DOES make a big fuss about it.

Go to three people you know, as smart as you can find, and ask a simple question: "In 2004, who led the invocation for Bush's inauguration?". Now see if ANY of them can come up with the correct answer

OK. Who's President Bush's intern? Funny how you take something that means a lot to a group of people, disrespect the symbol and then say it shouldn't be a big deal, people remember it! But you would say, no doubt, that Monica Lewinsky blowing the President in the Oval Office was no biggie. See, folks, the centrist mind at work. Clue: what do the far right and the far left have in common? Nada. When you hear party ops saying the same thing to both, they aren't talking to either! What has been done to today means nothing compared to what you will do tomorrow! Haven't I actually seen that on a paid promo somewhere? The ever becoming, never is, policy!

I get your message. Grow up, get with the program, if you've got to do something, write a check! You're going to demoralize your own party grass roots to the point that we will be able to waltz back in in 4!

I'm not generally one for ignoring religious bigotry, but one of the most brutally savaged figures of our day seems to do just that!

Emptying the piggybank? I thought after the elections the American Democratic Party was rolling in political capital! I guess we don't understand the popularity of the conservatives, if this is costly to speak about. I trust the Democrats and will take their word for it tho. Actually reading the posts, I get the feeling that this is more about the current decision makers not thinking it's worth spending capital on, period, or as has been suggested, just not thinking about it with so many other issues that need attention. It's good to see him reach out tho. Great statesmen do that. GLBT community should concentrate on how he has reached out to them in the past where the conservatives have attacked them. Can't have everything. Hell, I live in a democracy where you can't have anything! But, when all is said and done, don't you think that they have a little more of the big picture? Sure this might seem big to us, but we're mired in the details. There is so much more that we know nothing of.

This inauguration will be widely covered around the world. Can't wait to see what he has to say ("Think not of what you have done for your country, rather, what your country wants to do with you?") Sacrifice, except for BC, has been a popular theme with new Democratic administratons in difficult times, afterall. Maybe this is an example, a sacrifice for the greater good that he is asking one community to make.

A pox on the poison that Americablog, Daily Kos, and Open Left seem intent on spreading. They also seem intent on making the Democratic Party permanently out of power by their militant and self-destructive rhetoric.

The Republicans are as dead as the Whigs! I predict a majority of Americans will vote for Democrats over the next 25 years, whether they like the policies or not. There is simply no other viable choice. Political capital is about appearance. People like an underdog, and by keeping your powder dry you fight the impression that you are the majority, in complete control, which garners greater support. Bill Clinton could say, " I want this and that and the other thing, but, oh, damn, that Congress won't let me". That won't work now. I predict the most used phrase by Democrats over the next four years will be somehing akin to saying that they are solidly in favor of that policy, but the implementation is problematic and feel another other issue is much more deserving of the Party's attention at the moment.

I think I would rather concentrate on the comforts of dinner time and how many ways you can fix sprouts.

Frank Rich has a great take on l'affaire d'Warren. A slice of it:

http://is.gd/dM8H There’s no reason why Obama shouldn’t return the favor by inviting him to Washington. But there’s a difference between including Warren among the cacophony of voices weighing in on policy and anointing him as the inaugural’s de facto pope. You can’t blame V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop and an early Obama booster, for feeling as if he’d been slapped in the face. “I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table,” he told The Times, but “we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.” Warren, whose ego is no less than Obama’s, likes to advertise his “commitment to model civility in America.” But as Rachel Maddow of MSNBC reminded her audience, “comparing gay relationships to child abuse” is a “strange model of civility.” Less strange but equally hard to take is Warren’s defensive insistence that some of his best friends are the gays: His boasts of having “eaten dinner in gay homes” and loving Melissa Etheridge records will not protect any gay families’ civil rights. Equally lame is the argument mounted by an Obama spokeswoman, Linda Douglass, who talks of how Warren has fought for “people who have H.I.V./AIDS.” Shouldn’t that be the default position of any religious leader? Fighting AIDS is not a get-out-of-homophobia-free card. That Bush finally joined Bono in doing the right thing about AIDS in Africa does not mitigate the gay-baiting of his 2004 campaign, let alone his silence and utter inaction when the epidemic was killing Texans by the thousands, many of them gay men, during his term as governor.

"What makes the Dems every four years 'better' is always something that the hacks and yuppies are likely to imagine getting if they win, and their disgusting moralizing about the imperative to vote for their 'lesser evil'...means 'I may get what's important for me, but you have to recognize that what you need is naïve or impractical' -- is all about bullying the rest of us into believing we have an obligation to vote for what's good for them." (Adolph Reed, Jr., Where Obamaism Seems to be Going)

“we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.”

George, Gene Robinson doesn't understand the political complexities of the issue like our pundits do! As his statement is not ecumenical it is not PC and is not valid speech. No account need be taken. He's a disgruntled employee. There, that about covers the pass phrases.

Let us bow our heads. Please continue to drool on us oh salivary glands of realpolitik wisdom. We ask for all things not for ourselves, but for the Democratic Party's fame. Amen.

Seriously, we have to shut up. We have a complete piece of crap at Defense, just to avoid a repetition of gays and the military. He has us over a barrel. If we go on about this, we created the problem he was trying to avoid and are still stuck with a piece of crap at Defense. Basically he shot his own balls off and has handed us the gun. Now that's believing in your constituents!

Dan: Chomsky made the same prediction, and so did I. We would all have been right if the collapse of our economic system had happened two months later, despite the clear superiority of Obama's corporate money-raising numbers.

I don't subscribe to all of what Reed says (e.g., although he supported Nader in 2000, he was harsh in his criticism of Ralph's candidacy this time), but his argument about lesser-evilism is correct and well said.

As for cynicism, I don't think there's any doubt that the Obama campaign was one of the most cynical of my lifetime, e.g., review the "anti-war" misdirection, equal to Bush's claims that he never said that Sadam was responsible for 9/11. And NAFTA. And FISA. And bailouts for the rich. And the Patriot Act. And ...

Thank you Tonya G.

Seems to me that since both Warren and Obama are Christians, they both know Luke 6:28 "Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you."

As a Frank Rich fan, I know his opinion on Warren.

Here is Axelrod's response:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28408003/page/3/

We have to be--we have to find ways to work together on the things on which we do agree, even when we profoundly disagree on other things. And that's how we are going to build bridges of understanding and move this country forward. And that's what Barack Obama promised as a candidate. That's what he's going to deliver as president.

<<

It has been a long 8 years, but that, folks is known as debate. 2 good people (Rich and Axelrod) with opposing views. I think that is healthy.

In answer to your opening question Carla, and considering that the opposition opinion says it's just about votes, all could agree the answer is "yes" if BO is the standard.

This topic's responses are about to pass the May post, "Morning After" on the Oregon primary. Before that you have to go back to March and "Why I Support Hillary Clinton" . In between the only topics with more than 150 responses are all about right-wing hate mongering, most often Sarah Palin. Bottom line, the response would indicate that the issue is pure politics, and if BO is representative, votes.

That's incredible when you think that nothing during the actual period of the election received as many responses. rw's point is well taken about the effect of having a scad of snow posts might have focused attention a bit, but it's still quite a response.

Seriously, we have to shut up.

That or get pissed at everyone. Yes, the evangelical right is guilty of all the aforementioned crimes, but last week

Your speaker of the House is a Catholic. Personally, I say it's worth the capital, but not with Warren. Use it for Pelosi to say that equating GLBT lifestyle with global warming, misanthropy, trying to sabotage the UN convention and proclaiming "gender theory" to be an unacceptable doctrine, contrary to the faith, is inconsistent with the position of the Democratic Party. I would put good money on it that Arlen Spectre would say it before Sen. Pelosi, and I don't consider him a political spendthrift.

Seriously, we have to shut up.

That or get pissed at everyone. Yes, the evangelical right is guilty of all the aforementioned crimes, but last week the Pope went beyond "they're going to rape our children", saying that GLBT persons are going to cause the extinction of the human species. Catholics are different than Protestants. They are loyal to the teaching authority of Rome, or they are not good Catholics. In light of that, would any Catholic priest or bishop have been a problem? They are much more extreme, saying that EVERY GLBT person is a problem, which I have not heard Warren ever say.

Your speaker of the House is a Catholic. Personally, I say it's worth the capital, but not with Warren. Use it for Pelosi to say that equating GLBT lifestyle with global warming, misanthropy, trying to sabotage the UN convention and proclaiming "gender theory" to be an unacceptable doctrine, contrary to the faith, is inconsistent with the position of the Democratic Party. I would put good money on it that Arlen Spectre would say it before Sen. Pelosi, and I don't consider him a political spendthrift.

Energy is scarce.

Pick the fight you really WANT to fight.

Choose carefully.

I cant believe that you credit left wing blogs credit for making politicians pay attention to web media. And you go as far as to say that us on the right can all "fall bassackwards into influence". Lets not forget that the largest story EVER broken by a blog was broken by Matt Drudge yes that was the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Drudge also did it long before it was the popular thing to do. Also trust me blueoregon is not the compass for Oregon legislatures, since everything on BO is just a regurgitation of the same crap that is spewed on the House and Senate floor anyway.

TJ: won't really argue with that totally. But neither do I consider you, Kershner et. al to be at all Progressive. Your rage equals that of those who make me ill with thier rage on the right.

I do not recogize in you guys the compassionate intelligence I associate with true Progressivism.

But, yes, this is indeed to my lights a fairly Dem blog. But that could be from the election cycle just past, that perception. I don't know many folks up here. The one person I do know became a Dem as a strategic move to amplify his voice and access, without letting that embitter him polemically - red herrings are what they are.

He is still utterly focused on campaign finance reform, monolithic party issues, etc. Party registration did not change him. Hah. But it could have and might still change some small piece of the party.

"As in, if Obama had not disassociated himself from Wright in order to reduce -- not stop -- the damage from those attacks that he might not have won either the nomination or the general election."

He didn't disassociate himself from Wright until Wright used his new celebrity to hit the talk show circuit and try to become the story, instead of Obama. The "damage" from those attacks was entirely blunted by his brilliant speech. My recollection is that after his rejection of a repudiation was essentially turned against him by Wright--as if Wright said, "See, now you all gotta deal with me"--Obama wasted no time in nipping that right in the bud.

If Rick Warren had used his non-disinvitation of late as a platform to eagerly push his retrograde views further into the public consciousness, rather than meekly and pathetically trying to scrub them and reduce his profile as a force against homosexuality, I suspect Obama would have acted similarly in this case as well.

Posted by: torridjoe | Dec 28, 2008 8:59:35 PM

How about changing the header on the blog to "a place where up and coming members of the Democratic party gather to chat about the issues." Nothing wrong with that, and I think a much more honest characterization of the blog.

Solidarity Forever!

TJ: won't really argue with that totally. But neither do I consider you, Kershner et. al to be at all Progressive. Your rage equals that of those who make me ill with thier rage on the right.

You could prevent a lot of frustration and bandwidth if you posted those two statements together as a FAQ. torridjoe points out the unwritten situation that makes progressives scream; some leave, some accept the double-speak for the debate, but the reality remains for each new reader to discover for themselves. Very painful, very unecessary. In defense of the protesters, portraying a reality contrary to fact for consideration is the definition of fraud. What's wrong with telling the truth is that it will mean less $$$. You wouldn't go to a real-estate presentation and try to argue responsible growth practices and sustainable population. If you're hear you need to think like you went to a local Dem precinct meeting with your neighbors. There is no other way to speak to the Party. You have to talk in respectful tones, like you would to your neighbors, not in the language the Dem leadership needs to hear. This is the major function of the blog, in my humble opinion. Put a local, neighborly face on cynical Dem machine politics.

Yes, the "f" word is also taken to be rage. "Attractive nuisance", then. There's a sign o the... "Fraud" carries more outrage to have it used against you than "f*ck". The truth hurts, eh? Come on, you have a Shitcogo Daly product and a walking Delaware corp. as "change"?

rw demonstrates that you can be the most brilliant individual in the history of the universe, you can have a reasonable solution to every political situation, but it counts for absolutely nothing if the mob don't like the way you say it. Not that the mob particularly likes the way she says things, but there's greater and lesser mobs! The greater mob is agreed on rage and the overiding necessity for all sharing in the task of domestication. Native Americans that did'nt think like that are dead.

This is America, not anywhere else. Vacuous minds and eggshell egos come first. Everything else gets fit in where it can be confortably fit, if we get to it. This is the politics that arises when you have more people than roles for them in society. You cannot stick meaning into a meaningless existence (good definition of "military service"). You can only live a meaningful life by living a meaningful life. If there are more of you than the tasks require, the rest will either not have meaning or you will manufacture it. Wars work brilliantly to immediately give millions something that they need to be doing. How many times have you read a story about someone saying, "I saw/read that, and just knew I had to enlist". Ever ask, "and what were you doing when you had that realization? Let me guess...nothing...trying to live some contrived, arbitrary role?" And the intoxication of something real. "Friends for life; teaches you what really matters; makes you feel a part of something; builds character...". How about "only real thing you've ever done in your life"? You could drafted to pick up after everyone's dog for a year and probably hear the same. Contemporary life is so divorced from any perception of real contingencies between life and action that any kind of traction with reality induces irrational exuberance.

Really, tho, u could reduce "difficult" postings by 1/2 if you put those two opening statements in a FAQ. But this is why we put up with it. We are forced to live (try to leave, get away from Amerikan Imperialism!) here, and at times it can be unbelievable that the situation is as it is. It is reassuring in a morbid sort of way, to touch base here and see that it really is as bad as one thinks; that just because you are paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you!

Oh, and add a definition. "The Catholic Church is not to be considered along with right-wing evangelicals". Too many votes and it violates rw's principle. There is no polite way to point out that 25% of the population are homophobic, as principle of religion, without such an attitude being the obvious product of rage. Since the Normans started killing everyone that couldn't be domesticated, the English language has been about control through marketing. It is Norman culture, come down to us and the Brits, that has always taught that how you say something is more important than what you are saying.

Bottom line, when put in an outrageous situation, it is a high priority of the domesticators to breed a species which will not react with rage. You are being slowly bred out of the population. Women defining behavior that is too extreme is one important way the species self-domesticates. It gave humans their large brains, and now it's taking away any exercise thereof that doesn't feel nice in an overcrowded room. Any suggestion to reduce the crowding is misanthropy. Rage is a sign of the animal. All vestiges must be purged. A raging stallion on the open plains is inspiring, but one in the corral is a grave threat.

Progressives have to decide how they think they're going to have progressive policy in the face of a de-evolving, battery farmed ape where Eric Rudolph and Jimmy Carter have the same voice in who will lead. Personally I am concentrating (with the exception of this hopefully rare distraction as this one) on giving daily, practical help to the billions, world wide, that accept none of this. Our lifestyle is a very, very narrow, very white version of how people have never lived. Living in a Victorian novel makes as little sense as its architecture. Form over function. Lots of fetish nouns and litmus test adjectives. Almost everyone in the world, given a choice, reject all of it. Give them a voice, give them a means, make them part of the mainstream and you will melt away like snowflakes on a sunny day.

It doesn't do for one's sanity to consider those sunny days when you know you are stuck in horrid weather. You can curse the weather or batten the hatches, turn up the music where you can't hear the wind and get some practical work done for the day when it is sunny. Setting out in this climate will not affect the climate and it will kill you of exposure. Let's make sure the next post with 200 responses is worth it. "Emptying your personal sparetime piggybank of its capital: Is arguing with Party Apparachiks really worth it?" (I couldn't even use the original wording for something so absurd, because it's such bait! "Emptying...all". Find any statement where they could be justified!)

An old, tired, political saw has it that "anyone that votes Republican as a youth has no heart; anyone that votes Democrat in the maturity has no brain", I would add, "anyone that argues with the young Reps or old Dems are just wasting their time". By definition, both have placed their own personal emotional experiences above the day on day realities of the world around them.

This thread is very disturbing. Especially when you're just waking up for work.

Heh. Glad to always serve you screamers. You do not take note that I do not disagree with you HERE. But an elder in a lodge yesterday kept telling everyone, repeatedly in different rounds: don't get mad at them when they say something to you or about you. Look at what they say and think about if it is true. Not whether they have the right or if you are right. Think aobut it. Is it true?

:)... I find it amusing that the one time I am agreeing with you, you whine about my comments viz your continuous badgering b/c you feel it is misplaced to mention it on THIS thread. You never noticed much of anything I said to you on any other.... heh.

;)...

Kershner sez: "The fact that no one on BO seems to understand is that Obama was losing to McCain (and would have lost) as long as the "debate" hinged on non-economic issues. If the economic collapse had happened two months later than it did, pundits would be praising McCain for having run a brilliant campaign (and wasn't that Sarah Palin a perfect political pick?)."

Say Harry, if I had some ham, I could make ham and eggs, if I had some eggs.

Or as the Yiddish expression goes: As di bubbe volt gehat beytsim volt zi gevain mayn zaidah. (Translation: If my grandmother had balls, she'd be my grandfather.)

after this thread and Locutus and rw, "billy"/JK is Jim K-rlock, who is not a kid. He used to post using his whole name but I believe that posts which contain it now will be blocked from the site in "Climate Change", I promise, never, never, never, never to vote "the Party" without being informed ever, ever, again! Early New Years resolution for '09 through 2012!

"don't get mad at them when they say something to you or about you. Look at what they say and think about if it is true. Not whether they have the right or if you are right. Think aobut it. Is it true?"

Just saw a VP of Global Strategies (EDS, I think) on CSPAN giving a lecture on effective lobbying. It was the basics (get a copy of "how a bill becomes a law" for the jurisdiction you are lobbying--state legislatures are different from Congress, foreign governments are even more different), know the person you are lobbying(Eisenhower was already famous before he was President), have your message ready in both short and long time frames (be prepared if the Senator says "walk with me" or the committee chair says "please give us a 2 min. summary of your prepared testimony

About labels, he said they were less important than where a person fits on the spectrum: "Was Carter a liberal Democrat? Not to the Kennedy Democrats!" "Was Reagan really the conservative he is considered today?" * " And I love this line from Mark Shields, 'George W Bush entered office a cultural conservative and is leaving office a conservative socialist.' "

It becomes obvious who comes to BO to voice an opinion, to persuade, or merely to vent.

Check around for misogyny on that pick. My bet is that if you look, you will find it.

Re: "Obama would never have asked an openly racist or misogynist pastor to lead our nation in prayer."

Don't be so sure. It depends on who the object of hatred is and what the political calculation is. If the pastor hated Arabs, you can be sure that would have been okay with Obama. As for misogyny, you're really not paying attention (Google "Rick Warren misogyny"). And Jews see Warren's conflation of abortion with Nazi genocide as incredibly offensive. (Excepting of course, the Jews who worship Obama and post to BO.)

OK, Jamais. Far be it from anyone to suggest that you salt your aggrieved howl with an awareness that there are others who have been told their children were the product of bestial relations (yes, an aggrieved poster did ask that question, right? And I was not so happy to be able to reassure them that this particular means of feeling so specially hurt ..... was not theirs alone... and that was only ONE story from a few others that also involve urban russians/hatred of blacks who are animals, etc etc... ).

Sokay. Hold onto your specialness. It sometimes is the only blankie we have.

Bonafides and all.

It's just a stupid political mistake, but it reveals troubling things:

1. Naivety about the far right. Apparently, he believes there is political value in handing an olive branch to James Dobson's followers.

2. Indifference to gays. Another in a series of slights that show the lack of a core belief that gays truly need fundamental protections and deserve equal rights.

3. Tolerance of latent homophobia. Does he believe gays are so different from normal people, that he must allow for very negative reactions to them? I fear he has no stomach for a forceful confronting of homophobia.

In fact...

I also think it's a dog whistle style wink to Obama's many homophobic followers. You know, the ones who believe things like this: gay rights are not REALLY part of the civil rights movement...that was too sacred a struggle to be linked to those less ascendantly afflicted*

*cue Jo Ann Bowman et al.

DanK: I do not view gay rights the way a particular slice of black culture views them. But that does not stop me from understanding where their veiws are coming from. So on this thread we have heard it all, especially including shame on those of you who think the religious right fanatics are NEVER going to bend - you sound like the Righties judging Islam (Kershner?); and then others saying SHAME on you for even SPEAKING to them unbending Religious Righties......

God. This is why I lost hope and stopped voting for a very long time.

What's the fucking use? And no wonder people want to just stay to their own little slice of homogeneity. This is not discourse. It's not even banter. It's just noise.

shame on those of you who think the religious right fanatics are NEVER going to bend

Belief that a fanatic can become a moderate might be worth a prayer, but it isn't good policy. Hmm here's a thought...MAYBE they are just bending in ways favorable to YOU. So now I should be willing to make them my buddies?

Go vote a few more times and then offer me your self-serving wisdom.

Hey asshole Dan: I happen to believe as you do.

:).... how's that for wise?

;).... always pleased to meetcha where ya live.

Hey asshole Dan: I happen to believe as you do

No, no . . . I don't think you do. I think you probably call people like me "faggot" under your breath all the time.

Hahahah.. from one fellow faggot to another. Ah, but wait! You, confirmed in your monopole orientation at one end of the psychoerotic spectrum would despise me as intensely as those guys at the other end of the spectrum who hate us both equally? After all, we KNOW that only straight up gay/lesbian folks and Straight folks are the really adjusted ones? Oy vey.

There's your good old fashioned diversity unity,huh Dan?

Pitiful.

Dan, had I used punctuation, you would have understood that I am quoting some of our most bellicose posters who are saying THIS to YOU: "shame on those of you who think the religious right fanatics are NEVER going to bend - you sound like the Righties judging Islam" (Kershner? Bodden? DPlant? Cannot remember, they melt together).

The point to what I said after which you felt the elevated need to demean me as a voter, was that A. HERE IS ONE EXTREME SPOKEN HERE (see above) and B: HERE IS THE OTHER EXTREME, ALSO SPOKEN UP HERE (see elsewhere Danny) etc etc... My comment, honey, was to say "Gee kids, with the extreme polarizations of the accusations, pronouncements and lack of empathy here, it makes a person just say fuckit, forget about voting. It solves nothing".

SO. I am guilty of not punctuating so you could figure out what the f. I was saying, helping you to feel the need to assume I'm anti gay and get your licks in.

Pretty far from it. But I just happen to be in a phase of life during which I am not going to lay in the streets FIRST. I see other mouse holes to work through, and for me personally it's a positive thing that I do NOT just choose the most extreme and scramingly Active option first without excercising others that invite compassion or bleed-from-the-ears hard to get empathy.

You have to have ALL of the kind of actors busy at their plays to get any movement whatsoever. So everyone, stop abusing each other. Its' gonna take the screamers out there, I suppose, to make those not hectoring appear even more reasonable. That's how it worked when we were fighting teh first, second and third rounds in AIDS/HIV.

The problem with this is that those ensconced in thier BELIEFS are not subject to rationality and reason. Face it Dan, you immediately had that, "See? See how YOU are? Uh huh I know all about your kind" reaction. And this was because I had a poorly punctuated post that made you think I was sayign that shit I've been watching others say up here, likening you to the right against Islam, etc!

I have experience with brazen, comfortable homophobia in my cherokee family. At holidays EVERY person in that room made faggot jokes and more subtle bestiality jokes about our cousin, to his face. And it was in the culture that he must take it softly, with that unreadable smile upon his face. No fighting. NO scenes. Take it. I suffered horribly and certainly made a name for myself as inscrutable for speaking up then, for stopping the kids from tossing a kitten between them... stuff. Rancid bonafides.

Accustomed to San Fran, to Eugene, it was mind blowing to me to see how this worked. They could SAY that stuff to one of their own! And nobody stopped them, least of all the lone victim of thier daylong assaults of word. This did not change until a young nephew was physically assaulted the way THEY used to assault suspected gay or bi men, and something much worse. Then it was family. And though they never stopped being homophobic, they stopped being RABIDLY homophobic. Blood is blood. Only this could trump, this BELIEF, could trump that other belief.

It will take direct humanizing experience to force a crack in their armour, the ones who dehumanize us who are unlike them, and we are likewise engaged in the dance of dehumanization. Theoretical constracts have not a chance against unreasoning religion, er... belief systems. And based on what I experienced out there, Homophobia is a nearly unassailable belief system.

Kari: I'm for Hornitos. Straight up. And an opium back.

Chill me or kill me.

Foo.

Sorry.

rw: Dear fellow fagot. You're right, I assumed incorrectly. But, you're reading a lot of incomplete and incorrect meaning into what I'm writing too. AND...calling me an asshole for being a little snarky (which is traditionally done on blog comments and is an innocently fun thing to do 99.9999% of the time) got you a predictable reaction.

So my question...rhetorical question...please don't post an answer...oh please, please please...is:

Isn't a strong reaction exactly what you were looking for?

Just pretend I'm someone you like up here.

Nope. Was not. At least, not yours. Believe it or not, my preference is for playfulness, a little push and shove conversation like a ramada of ponies scuffling at a high trot down a road. Much of what goes on here is just pissing, moaning and sledgehammering.

No lovers' tussles of mind measuring mind, no friendly sweat. Just a lot of bitchy bashing.

It's not what I crave, but it is what is found here quite often.

Posted by: Leo Schuman | Dec 30, 2008 9:34:38 AM

Kevin wrote: "If by that you mean politically acceptable in the sense that such a position wouldn't be an automatic deal-breaker then I would agree. But if you mean that Obama personally doesn't have a problem with such a position then I would strongly disagree."

So, do you think Obama put such a pastor [who advocates domestic subservience for women] on-stage to lead the nation in prayer at his inaugural, within weeks after a ballot measure passed restricting a woman's right to choose? Is he that insensitive? Or are women a large enough demographic to merit respect?

What about all the reprehensible EOs that baby Bush has been signing, all undercutting the right to choose? And why the flurry? Is there a gentleman's agreement that succeeding President's don't just undo all the Eos they disagree with? Is he going to signal this publicly before killing the EOs? Is he going to let them stand?

Zara, apparently they cannot be undone without a significant process if they are signed and enacted (I believe it is) sixty days out. So they've been intelligently and frantically getting in their last dumps of trash and restraint devices ahead of that. If they are on the books that specific number of days, they are harder to undo. He has intelligently clogged the works with his regressive ethos, he and his minions.

What a great idea. By pulling to the center and AWAY from both margins... although one asks what happens to "marriage" then? Will it be allowed to rest fully in the discretion (as it should always have ONLY been) of churches and religionists never to be mixed again with the law/public life?

We have a really vocal contingent of gay and lesbian (and bisexual too) people who repudiate civil union, ultimately, as stopping short of full acceptance and being allowed ALL rights and ceremonies available to heterosexuals. They may well press against this as somehow "settling", possibly.

But it could then become a more-healthy prosecution of activism within churches, happening as it has with the Methodist churches, with the work of like-minded within the church....

What a great idea and a good starting place.

Great comment, Kevin. I like the idea of marriage being a religious term, not a legal term. That way those whose religious belief is that marriage is a sacrament, and churches which will only marry those who complete their preparation for marriage class, will not be called bigots or anti-gay just for following their religious beliefs.

Freedom means that X and Y are both allowed to believe things that others don't believe, with X not imposing beliefs on Y, and Y not imposing beliefs on X. Is that too radical a notion?

Hmm. Yah, I see waht you mean. I posted from work, did not have time to mull or craft. I guess b/c I've known more non-churchy types than religionists who use the church for their marrying in the full-bore marrying kinda way... I was relating them both on similar strength/grounds.

I argued the same as you way back on this blog too. I said that it was ridiculous to try to FORCE the fundagelicals to marry you and your same gender spouse, as ridiculous as trying to force a Catholic church to perform a Muslim union.... because the mix and match does not match.

Go to a church that respects you and yours, think about such as Reconciling Methodists who are actively working politically within the councils to move the church to that out come, etc.

I Do know that it's critical that at some point we MUST have spiritually-blessed union allowed for same gender love. When my ex who'd been married once already and was looking for a new way to disrespect me kept telling me let's just go to the JOP, it hurt my feelings.

I was never one to dream of some overblown, overcast, overdressed, costly wedding, still, to have this man just shrug and say, "Let's go order a hamburger. I've already had one of those weddings before....." was hurtful.

Needless to say, once he was really in love and truly wanted my hand in a deep marriage, my spirit had been schooled not to trust him, and be carefully and strategically getting OUT... sigh.

So there are unions wherein the civil ceremony is important - that is the legal part; but there is that spiritual recognition component that goes to the bone too.

I sense that at times the angry vexing of the gay and lesbian community may cause them to deliver a mixed message, ranting at the churches that will not marry them, but at the same breath discussing the legal bonafides of marriage.

The two really SHOULD be disentangled. It might make it easier to work on true progress in both realms, too. It's cloudy when it's THIS way.

God.. wouldn't it be so wonderful if OUR city was the first one to accomplish this and make it stick? I'd be so proud...

Whew, Kevin. That is a stiff dose of REALITY.

Whew. This is why we search for community. And have a hard time to stop trying to force not-community to love us just as much as mama too!

;)

222 posts, double Nelson!