{"id":2481,"date":"2008-12-18T10:47:22","date_gmt":"2008-12-18T15:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/?p=2481"},"modified":"2008-12-18T10:48:34","modified_gmt":"2008-12-18T15:48:34","slug":"if-not-us-who-if-not-now-when","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/2481","title":{"rendered":"If Not You, Who? If Not Now, When?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A. Serwer over at Tapped gets it<\/a>…<\/p>\n

\n

I think it’s more likely that he’s marginalizing Warren’s rivals among the Evangelical leadership. Warren is not actually any less conservative than Dobson<\/strong> or Robertson<\/strong> or anyone else. He is less partisan<\/em>. His views on abortion and violence are similarly inconsistent, with one being abhorrent and the other acceptable. (The power and legitimacy of the American state, it seems, turns the conservative faithful into moral relativists.) But Warren has shown a tendency not to attack individual political figures the way his peers have, and so Obama has made the decision to elevate Warren at his rivals’ expense. I had an argument with my colleague Brentin Mock<\/strong> yesterday about Obama’s decision, where he pointed out that someone else would be occupying Warren’s leadership role if it wasn’t Warren, and given the alternatives he’s the best choice.<\/p>\n

None of this really changes the fact that mainstreaming homophobia is inexcusable, and that Warren does not deserve to share a stage with the Rev. Joseph Lowery<\/strong>. The contrast between Warren’s celebrity and Lowery’s life fighting for civil rights is absolutely staggering. It’s possible to interpret the decision to include Warren and Lowery as another Lincoln<\/strong> "we are not enemies but friends" moment, an attempt to bring the religious right and religious left together. The only problem is the most offended parties, the LGBTQ community and the women Warren equates with Nazis, are not in any symbolic sense present to make the choice to be friends or enemies. Had Obama, say, chosen a gay pastor and forced Warren to make the difficult decision of whether or not to appear, the situation might be a bit different. At the same time, Lowery’s presence as a symbol of his generation’s sacrifice is absolutely necessary. Obama simply wouldn’t be able to run for president without men like Joseph Lowery.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Even if one reads Warren’s presence as a cold political calculation, it’s hard to see why the LGBTQ community wouldn’t be outraged at being exploited for the purpose of cultural triangulation. Obama isn’t a homophobe, but you gotta wonder how long the LGBTQ community has to wait before they get a president who thinks homophobia is unacceptable…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Someone else…I forget who…remarked that it was as if it was 1993 all over again…an unpopular Bush leaves office and a bright and shining new hope for everyone who believes in liberty and justice for all takes office, only to sell out gay Americans and begin a strategy of triangulation…<\/p>\n

How long?  Yes.  That is The Question.  How long do we have to wait for our heterosexual neighbors to finally, at long last, become appalled at what has been done all these years to their gay and lesbian neighbors…to their friends…to their own children…?  How long before they finally, Finally see the magnitude of what has been taken from?   How long before the sight of hate toward loving couples disgusts them more, then the sight of someone making excuses for hate?  How long before shaking hands with gutter crawling bigots like Rick Warren disgusts them enough that even a politician can feel it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A. Serwer over at Tapped gets it… I think it’s more likely that he’s marginalizing Warren’s rivals among the Evangelical leadership. Warren is not actually any less conservative than Dobson or Robertson or anyone else. He is less partisan. His views on abortion and violence are similarly inconsistent, with one being abhorrent and the other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[53,18,20,90,78,12],"class_list":["post-2481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-feckless-democrats","tag-gratuitous-anti-gay-hate","tag-the-american-gutter","tag-the-human-gutter","tag-the-struggle-for-america","tag-the-struggle-for-our-lives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}