Preaching to the Wrong Choir

"Did St. Francis really preach to the birds?  Whatever for?  If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats." - Rebecca West

Right-wing Christians believe - mistakenly, we hope - that their Bush Gravy Train will continue chugging happily along under an Obama administration.  The President-elect has already promised increased federal funding to faith based initiatives, a cash cow that's often heavy on faith and light on initiative.  Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, says, "Proselytizing and discrimination in hiring have been two of the big problems with the president's program.  You can't mention the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities as models of what's appropriate [as Obama did], and then say you can't engage in religious discrimination in employment, because both of those organizations do discriminate."

If only employment discrimination was the worst problem that gays and lesbians face.  But it's not.  Barack Obama's reluctance to distance himself from the purveyors of hate was made manifest when he legitimized Rev. Rick Warren's bigotry by giving him a prime spot at the Inaugural.  After progressives cried foul, Obama shrugged it off saying, "We can disagree without being disagreeable." At the Huffington Post, Mikki Alanne takes issue with this line of reasoning by noting that the disagreement centers on the most basic human right of all -- the right to live a life free of violence:  Because words are where violence begins.  And in America, violence against gays, lesbians, and transgendered people most often begins in hateful and intolerant words spoken in right-wing churches like Rick Warren's Saddleback.  Warren has compared gay and lesbian people to pedophiles and perpetrators of incest.  His words may often be cloaked more politely, but in his intolerance, Warren is really no different than James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Fred Phelps, or other peddlers of anti-gay hate.

Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, writes on AJC that having Warren give the invocation might indicate a subtle shift in Obama's theology:  At the very least, Obama has symbolically abandoned his own denomination, the United Church of Christ, which is at the cutting edge of the social gospel.  He has honored the Southern Baptist Convention...  These two bodies occupy opposite wings of Christian faith... If he is signaling a shift in his theological vision, then his moral vision is devolving.

Whether or not Obama is successful in passing hate-crimes legislation (and I'm sure that won't be a priority), the fact remains that by embracing intolerant Christians like Rick Warren, our new president is legitimizing their message of hate.  You simply can't compare LGBT Americans to pedophiles - the most reviled class of human beings - and not expect hate crimes to follow. 

The FBI reports that violence against gays and lesbians increased significantly last year, even though hate crimes aimed at other minorities dropped by 1 percent.  Despite this sobering fact, evangelical pastors who profess to "love the sinner, hate the sin" remain blind to the trails of blood that lead directly to their own pulpits.  And now Obama's vision seems clouded as well.  America won't see a decrease in ant-gay violence until religious leaders start preaching against the bigotry that causes it. 

Comments

[Francolo]

Hate sexual minorities? Why not? Large sized minorities in US (blacks, hispano, etc etc) are the majoity to be protected, leave the hate to a much smaller sized populations: the churches will provide a better solution for them. If final (solution) or not, there has always been a policy of US fighting battles outside US territory, as they may be more costly but yelding a better press. Remember the Civil War? Wasn't it a gas? So absorb the smaller problems and eject the bigger ones, an easier way to go. As to Democracy, what to say of countless US Military Bases all over the World? Is it the right Democracy, for humans, after all? If so, why they do not comply and be good boys? Impossible. Human nature supeceeds human inventions.