Oh, fuck you, Barack

[solarbird]

President-Elect Barack Obama has picked fundamentalist evangelical Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Rev. Warren was a big supporter of California's Proposition 8, which wrote "fuck you, queers" into the California constitution and eliminating marriage rights in that state. He says same-sex marriage is the same as paedophilia, incest, and so on. He pushed the freakish lie that civil marriage for GBLT people destroys free speech. He considers abortion rights the same as the Holocaust, and supports efforts to keep GBLT people illegal in countries in Africa. Oh, and "mainline" Christian churches preach "Marxism in Christian clothing."

Andrew Sullivan calls Rick Warren "Dobson-lite" and gets the motivation - but calls it more wedge politics and says "not on the backs of gay people." Sorry, Andrew, it's the Democratic Party. Glenn Greenwald notes:

Obama's "inclusiveness" mantra always seems to head only in one direction -- an excuse to scorn progressives and embrace the Right. Not even Bill Clinton's most extreme Dick-Morris-led "triangulation" tactics involved an attempt to court Jerry Falwell.

Of course, he's getting plaudits from places like Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. But also, sadly predictably, people like Marc Ambinder at Salon are praising the choice for its "inclusiveness." Thanks, dicks. Will be seeing a representative of the Klu Klux Klan for the Benediction? How fucking "inclusive" would that be?

So, fuck you, Barack, and by the way, Merry fucking Christmas to you too. I'd like to be more surprised, but I'm not.

Comments

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Obama has learned triangulation from the masters (the Clintons).

[solarbird]

Bill at least waited until after he was inaugurated.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

actions like this are totally puzzling to me. because fuckers like this guy shout out against gay rights and womens rights and etc., so you just KNOW that they would also like to should out against every kind of right for every single person who is not an adult white male. you comment about the KKK is very apropros, and is well taken. i just can't get the need to include, in a such a profound and moving event, a person who wants to EXclude the main participant. (does that sentence make sense?) none of the excuses/reasons i have seen make sense, and all seem to boil down to "We are having transvestites participating, so we need to balance the party".

um, what?

also, i am having trouble believing that Warren AGREED to go up in front of the entire world on a stage and celebrate "Barrack HUSSEIN ANTI-CHRIST GAY-LOVER BABY-KILLER MASS-MURDERER ISLAMIC KENYA/INDONESIAN CITIZEN MANCHURIAN PRESIDENT Obama". did i miss anything?

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Warren is, on the scale of evangelical Christian pastors, nowhere near the lunatic fringe; he hosted the remarkably non-partisan Civil Forum on the Presidency at his church, for example. But he's still not what I want to see at the inauguration...

[solarbird]

He's said himself that the only differences between him and James Dobson are style.

And no, that's not the "lunatic fringe" in this country. It's still politically polite to support criminalisation of me, and everyone like me. What this shows is that Mr. Obama is okay with that, and, by including it, that continuing to be politically polite. Fuck that, and fuck him.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

you think so? everything i have read over the pst day has led me think Warren = Dobson, that Warren himself said the only difference between them is tone. how they say it.
i guess what you are saying is that, while he still isn't good, he;s not as bad as he could be. which is true.
why couldn't Obama have found a nice Unitarian minister? THEY are inclusive; Warren just seems to be devisive.

[paranoyd.livejournal.com]

Obama is a person, not a saint. He has beliefs and ideas, and he's not going to do everything I or you want him to. I am unhappy about this, and I'm a huge advocate for gay rights (brother, best friend, gaming group, all gay, voted no on 8, go to Pride parades ...) but this is just a prayer.

Warren is a bad choice, to be sure, but how many good choices are there in high profile religions? Personally, the story to me is that there will be an invocation, and that flies in the face of the separation of church and state.

Even after all of this, Obama is still the best choice available. Again, I'm agreeing with you on a slightly smaller scale. I just don't think getting this upset about it is useful, until we see if Warren has any sort of influence on actual policy. Now THAT would be a Fuck You Obama moment.

[solarbird]

One, I've already been having to fight Mr. Obama's multiple runs at bringing pro-torture people onboard. I've also been very upset at him since his spin-about on FISA; that vote guaranteed I wouldn't support him in the election. (I voted a token Libertarian vote.) But two, see the followup post I just made for what this is really about.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Or a UCC minister who wouldn't get the "Black Theology" folks up in arms... many of them are affirming and welcoming, or whatever the UCC term is for it.

And yes, all I'm saying is that Warren isn't as bad as some. Not that he's good.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Please understand, I don't think the selection of Rick Warren is a GOOD thing. But since the two things I most want to happen (an interfaith invocation, or no religious invocation at all) are extremely unlikely to happen, I'll take Warren over Franklin Fucking Graham.

But maybe there's still time to change his mind.

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

Larry Summers (yeah, he worked for the Clintons, but that was *before* he made the asinine comment about women & the sciences, obama put him in knowing and not caring), whatever the name of the Global warming denier guy he put in his cabinet who thinks nuclear power & clean coal & more drilling are essential to national security, the speechwriter groping the cut-out of Hillary and putting it on his facebook site and not even getting a reprimand -- this is sort of a pattern.

I'm just disappointed no one got upset before now.

[solarbird]

I been upset for a while!

[denelian.livejournal.com]

i tend to dislike UCC less than everyone else.

we can suffer Warren saying some Magic Words. the man just offends me on a cellular level. which puzzles my parents, as i'm not in any of his target groups, they think it doesn't matter.

but it DOES. people like him live for hating, and want to make eveyone els hate. so, i guess that he has succeeded in making me hate, or at least vehemently dislike.

[banner.livejournal.com]

I have to admit to being rather shocked that you thought Obama was pro gay. He isn't. Never was, never will be. I thought everyone knew that.

Obviously I was wrong.

[solarbird]

I think you misunderstand; I haven't been a supporter of Mr. Obama; I voted for the Libertarian candidate, Mr. Barr, in the general election. However, I know many people who are expecting good things from Mr. Obama, and I know his campaign pledges. I will continue to hope that they are correct in his sincerity, but I will also continue to supply large doses of reality check as appropriate.

[banner.livejournal.com]

I -REALLY- hate to admit this, but I wish Hillary had won. Obama is just another crooked chicago pol who lies with ease. McCain, hell I don't know what to think about McCain, He's (IMHO) a dishonest version of Hillary Clinton. Out of the three of them, I think she was the only one who actually could have done the job.