Should Progressives Engage Agents of Intolerance?

[yowzayowzayowza]

By Nathaniel Frank
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathaniel-frank/should-progressives-engag_b_152879.html

Many progressives are disappointed that Obama chose Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.

<snip>

Indeed, if there is a rational argument against gay marriage, I have yet to see it. And this is why Obama's invitation to Warren might just work. A major limitation to progressive thinking is our over-reliance on rational debate. Despite our instincts to bullet-point the reasons why opponents of gay rights are wrong, rational debate is not generally what creates change. As Hilary Rosen recently wrote on this blog, "The power of gay people is not in our numbers. It is in the number of people we touch. It is in families and workplaces and religious homes that allies are born and political progress is made." And to touch people, we need to share our stories with people who are in the same proverbial room. We might not even need to debate them, just show them who we are.

While the analogy between the personal setting of homes or workplaces and the political stage of an inauguration is imperfect, it's possible that the principle of engagement is, for a time, worth trying. After all, liberals are all about engagement when it comes to the international stage -- why not do the same with our fellow Americans?

Let me be clear: I was distressed by the Warren pick. It looks like a political calculation designed to win over agents of intolerance even if that means kicking in the stomach those Americans Obama promised to represent, and undermining the principles of unity and tolerance he claims to embody. Tolerance simply doesn't extend to tolerating intolerance. And so the inauguration was probably not the place to invite someone who uses religion to justify intolerance and division.

But it's done. Progressives should use the episode as a teachable moment: to remind ourselves that engagement is a principle we embrace, that reason only gets you so far in this world, and that to show--rather than tell--America why our principles are the right ones and the necessary ones, requires that all people of good faith be seated at the table. Whether Rick Warren is one of those people God only knows.

[NWHarkness]

1. Engagement requires reciprocation

One side standing at a podium preaching, while the other is allowed to do no more than march in a parade does not strike me as engagement.

And as to whether or not only God knows if Warren is a person of good faith, I cn not look into his heart, but I can look at his website, and up until a day or two ago it explicitly stated that gays, who Warren claims to love, were banned from his church. That ought to be an indication of his good faith.

[katandmoon]

2. IOW - when we get fucked without getting kissed, let's show that we LIKE it!

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Since the McClurkin events

I have been asking the Obama folk when the 'conversation' and 'engagement' would begin. They use those words as if they have no meaning, and that is getting to be insulting. A monolouge is simply not a dialouge. Thus far no gay person 'of good faith' has been given a place at any table.
Asking me to sit silently and listen to attacks against my family is not the same as aking me to participate in a dialouge, and it is time to start speaking without insidious spin, in honest words.
And as far as Warren's heart. In 2004, just before the election, he emailed his 'flock' and thousands of others a list of non-neogtiable issues to base their vote on-gay rights, abortion, stem cell research and a coule of others. He says those are unalterable positions. For him and for his.

[madrchsod]

4. my experience with these people is.....it`s a waste of time

if i would deviate from their perception of christianity they would stop listening. they refuse to accept anyone`s opinion but their "preacher`s"......