OK, this might be unpopular, so brace yourselves.
/me dons his asbestos long-johns.
What was Obama thinking when he picked Rick Warren? He was thinking that he needed to do something to draw all Americans, not just the left. So he picked what he thought would be perceived as a center-right preacher, Rick Warren, to deliver the benediction for his inauguration.
Except that Rick Warren's a lot more right than center. I forget who it was that said on Olbermann yesterday that Rick Warren was Jerry Falwell wearing a Hawaiian shirt. The things that Warren said about members of the GLBT community were just flat out hateful. And after Prop. 8 passed, the LGBT community was in a hostile mood, and rightfully so. Oops. Obama's attempt to reach across the aisle backfired.
So what should Obama do? Throw him under the bus by condemning his stance on homosexuality and replacing him with some other preacher? That would work. It's easy, it throws red meat at the base, but it's ultimately counterproductive. America's spent the last eight years split into angry armed camps flinging poo at each other, and Obama ran on the premise that we can quit flinging poo, talk about our differences like civilized people, come to a mutually agreeable solution and then stand together as Americans. There is no red America, or blue America, there is the United States of America, remember?
That's why Obama's not throwing Warren under the bus. If we're to get past bigotry, we do have to reach out and persuade evangelical Christians that discrimination and hatred of the LGBT community is wrong. We're not going to persuade them if we just dig into our foxholes and fling poo at them. We have to share a table with them.
Remember Obama's race speech?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/obama-race-speech-read-th_n_92077.html
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
...
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
That's where Obama's coming from. We have a choice. We can throw Rick Warren under the bus, go back into our armed camps and keep doing the same old shit. Or we can reach out to Rick Warren and like-minded evangelicals. We can condemn Warren's statements about gay and lesbian members of our nation, but at the same time, sit down with them, talk with them, and maybe even change their minds. And then we can come together and find some common ground and work together to do things like fix the environment, attack poverty head-on, and stand as Americans.
You want my bet on what's going to happen? Get ready for Obama's inauguration speech. I'll bet he hits one out of the park!
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