America's Minister...

My biggest objection to Obama asking Rick Warren to give the benediction at his inauguration was not that he'd do an extremely crappy job (which he did), but that it gave him the stature of "the new Billy Graham" who gets to go on Meet The Press and other places as the voice of organized religion in the United States.

And then there's the stuff like this:

Rick Warren, the pastor who delivered the invocation at President Obama's inauguration, is once again on the defensive -- this time for his work with a Ugandan pastor who would like homosexuality to be punishable by death.

Newsweek tried to get Warren's reaction to the anti-gay work of Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan pastor who has come to his Saddleback Church multiple times. (Warren has distanced himself from Ssempa in general terms, saying the Ugandan minister does not represent him or his church.) Warren wouldn't reject the idea:

But Warren won't go so far as to condemn the legislation itself. A request for a broader reaction to the proposed Ugandan anti-homosexual laws generated this response: "The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations." On Meet the Press this morning, he reiterated this neutral stance in a different context: "As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides." Warren did say he believed that abortion was "a holocaust." He knows as well as anyone that in a case of great wrong, taking sides is an important thing to do.

Ssempa has also burned condoms "in the name of Jesus," helping roll back a highly successful anti-AIDS campaign in Uganda.

Someone should probably remind him that he'd didn't really adhere to his noble "not taking sides" doctrine when he strongly supported prop 8 last year. And while we're at it, someone should tell him that not opposing a law that would execute people for being gay IS in fact taking the position that you're cool with that sort of thing.

Pressure Works/ Clapping Louder Does Not

As a follow up to my post on the pressure the Obama administration is getting from the Gay community, it's worth pointing out the news that broke earlier today.

Reacting to a rising tide of anger from gay and lesbian supporters at a series of slights and deferred promises, President Obama will tomorrow extend some benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.

The move, which begins to mirror the policy of many large corporations, will have an immediate effect for many workers, but it is a deeply reactive response to a core Democratic group whose concerns have been festering for six months. The presidential memorandum -- scheduled for signing tomorrow at 5:45 p.m., may in the short term, give Joe Biden something positive to say at a June 25 fundraiser that has seen prominent guests drop out, a host sharply attack the administration, and which is expected to be marked by protests.

Awesome! Except...

However, the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the federal government from extending health and retirement benefits to same-sex couples, so the benefits are more likely to be marginal -- like relocation assistance.

So while the move sucks as far as actual substance goes, it shows that they are feeling the heat, so much so that they were compelled to react (albeit with a fairly meaningless executive order).

There are two schools of thought in the progressive movement right now on the best way to achieve our goals during a Democratic Administration. One side believes that the best way to do this is to create political pressure on the issue, such as the actions surrounding this fundraiser, and "make him do it" as FDR once said. The other school of thought is to "clap louder" as Chris Bowers put it, and not criticize Obama, hoping that he will do the right thing at the end of the day.

There are often gray areas to these debates and times when people can agree to disagree. This is not one of them. The overwhelming majority of the time, the first method works and the second one does not. There will be rare occasions when politicians act out of the goodness of their heart and "do what's right", but believing that will occur with any regularity is to live in a fantasyland.

Real change gets made when people start to feel the pressure, and the Obama administration feels it on this issue. The progressive movement needs to wrap their minds around the fact that this is how politics works, and learn how to adapt their tactics on other issues that are in need of progressive pressure.

Give Us Money or We'll Continue to Do Nothing for Your Cause!

So last week there was this idiocy:

President Obama called the Defense of Marriage Act "abhorrent" on the campaign trail and won praise from gay rights advocates for promising to reverse the whole act, not just one section.

But for now, Americablog finds, his Justice Department is defending it as the law of the land — and defending it forcefully, with analogies to incest and child marriage.

The government's motion to dismiss is below; here's John Aravosis:

It's pretty despicable. And before Obama claims he didn't have a choice, he had a choice. Bush, Reagan and Clinton all filed briefs in court opposing current federal law as being unconstitutional (we'll be posting more about that later). Obama could have done the same. But instead he chose to defend DOMA, denigrate our civil rights, go back on his promises, and contradict his own statements that DOMA was "abhorrent."

Pretty disgusting stuff. Also probably not the time for this:(Image via Pam's house blend)


We've actively turned our back on promises to fight for your rights... now give us money! The good news is that big names have started make their discontent known with their wallets, the only gesture that politicians truly understand:

Two prominent gay figures, activist David Mixner and widely read blogger Andy Towle, have pulled out of a Democratic National Committee fundraiser later this month amid growing calls to confront the administration at what was supposed to be its first large scale opportunity to bring in gay cash.

"I will not attend a fundraiser for the National Democratic Party in Washington next week when the current administration is responsible for these kind of actions," Mixner wrote of a motion to dismiss a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act that drew a parallel between same-sex marriage to incestuous marriage. "How will they ever take us seriously if we keep forking out money while they harm us. For now on, my money is going to battles within the community such as the fight in Maine or the March on Washington! I am so tired of being told by Democratic operatives to 'suck it up' because so many other profound issues are at stake," Mixner wrote.

"I've had concerns about the lack of movement from the administration on LGBT issues for some time now but I wasn't comfortable attending after that DOMA brief came out," Towle, who writes the widely read Towle Road blog, said in an e-mail.

And today a few bigger names dropped out, a sign that the whole fundraiser might be scrapped according to John Aravosis of Americablog:

It's over, folks. A lot of us have been saying that if Marty Rouse, the Human Rights Campaign's National Field Director, were to pull his attendance from next week's DNC $1,000 a person gay fundraiser, then the fundraiser would effectively be dead. Well, HRC official Marty Rouse just pulled out as a result of the White House's homophobic DOMA brief in which they equated gay marriage to incest.

The DNC was hawking the attendance of "HRC's Marty Rouse" for a few weeks now, among other gay luminaries, in order to build attendance at the event.

It's great to see this kind of push back, and it needs to be a lesson for the rest of the progressive movement on how to effectively pressure your side into action. Chaos like this makes politicians think twice before enraging their supporters, and that's always a good thing.

Gay Marriage

It's a complicated issue, one that matters both very deeply, because of civil rights, and very little, because marriage is a deeply problematic institution that isn't as important as the country thinks. I've got a lot more to say about it. But for the moment, let this suffice:

via Andrew Sullivan and Graph Jam.


EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention this recced Kos diary, which proposes a hostile takeover of the highly offensive Mormon practice of posthumously baptizing non-Mormons, in the form of "converting" dead Mormons to homosexuality. The first prayed-for convert? Joseph Smith, of course!

Dear God of the Homos,

With your great and everlasting love that blessed the covenants of Achilles and Petroclus, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and of Jonathon and David, bless then the soul of Joseph Smith of Sharon, Vermont with your divine penis. Let it pierce the anus of his soul, and let you be forever joined to him, since on this oppressive earth, he was denied the pleasure of the male sex.

Forever and ever, our brother Joseph Smith has now joined our family (We Sing the Hymn to Praise God of the Homos!).

Blessed be God of the Homos,

Amen