Question: Am I the ONLY person that didnt know that Warren was an extreme Flame Throwing Bigot?

[uponit7771]

The more I hear and CONFIRM about Warren (including what I just saw on Maddow tonight) the more I question whether or not Obama knew this guy was an extreme flame throwing bigot either, he has been shown lax at vetting the pastors before.

Thx in advance for your input

[KansasVoter]

1. The more you learn about Warren the dumber Obama looks for picking him!

I love Obama, but this was a huge mistake!

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. Most GLBT people knew what Warren stands for

That Obama did NOT speaks volumes about who has not been invited to advise him.

[uponit7771]

8. VERY VERY VERY true! +1 ! If Obama had someone from the LGBT community then he could've avoided this

...embarrasment. As a black man I would be insulted if Clarence Thomas was invited to be withing 300 miles of OBama's inaugaration.

[efhmc]

3. Never heard of him before.

[Mz Pip]

4. That's my take on this

Sloppy vetting.

Warren was probably on his best behavior the couple of times he met with Obama. If anyone on Obama's staff had taken the time to Google Warren's greatest hits, we wouldn't be spending every other thread yammering away about him. He would not have been invited to do the invocation.

I think Obama is probably regretting this but pulling Warren would just draw more attention to the matter. Obama isn't stupid, but someone on his staff didn't do their homework. But the buck stops with Obama so this is his mess to take responsibility for. He'll have to be even more of an advocate for GLBT rights once he is in office.

[uponit7771]

20. TOUCHE~!!! If Obama HAD a member of the LGBT community in his staff or close to him he wouldn't have

...gone down this path.

I didn't know Warren wrote TPDL until tonight

[Skittles]

5. Obama knew

he knew all too well

[uponit7771]

10. unnn, I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I had NO IDEA Warren was SUCH an asshole, he would

...not allow teh gay to be a "member" of his church until recently. Just saw it on Maddow...the guy is a jerk and before this week I didn't know how MUCH of a jerk he was.

[Skittles]

18. I knew about Warren

and I would expect the f***ing president-elect to know too

[uponit7771]

23. It is POSSIBLE that Obama was sloppy towards ANOTHER pastor, but I expect more of Obama too.

[Skittles]

27. personally I believe the other pastor is why Obama is OK with Warren

he went from one extreme to the other

[Skink]

6. So you missed the Wright fiasco.

Maybe Obama isn't joking about his own religion. Which shound't appease on anybody. I'm sort of whatever and I'm not gonna tune in to etc.

[tbyg52]

7. I didn't pay attention to him much,

and don't to his ilk, unless they make the news, in which case I snicker.

But Obama, and/or his team, should have known and/or found out.

This is a major deal to me, and I hope he finds some way to fix it.

Only way I can see right now (thanks to another DUer, whom I am too sleepy to search right now) is to invite *more* people, a rainbow. Hope he does.

[Dragonfli]

9. I only knew because I follow fundie hate groups

I have been concerned about their Theocratic agenda since the 90's.
I like to keep a close eye on them.

To answer your question, most Americans only know about "good things said" regarding his book "A Purpose Driven Life". It made the news dontyaknow.

Hopefully more will learn about the hidden negativity now, the only possible silver lining to this nasty little cloud.

[tbyg52]

12. I should follow them as well.

Have you, perchance, a mailing list I could subscribe to? :hi:

[Dragonfli]

24. Sorry, don't know of any, I just keep my eyes and ears open.

I can recommend an excellent book however. "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America" by Chris hedges.

It is a good start if you want to understand the dangers and start your own "watch"

:hi:

(edited to add) A must see documentary on how wacky and dead serious these fundies are is called "Jesus Camp" - it is a camp many of the mega-church types send their kids for a sort of militarized indoctrination into a future in politics (read theocratic shift from within the system)

http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/

[tbyg52]

38. Thanks, I should get that

I've also been meaning to get "Marjoe":
http://www.amazon.com/Marjoe-Thoth-Gortner/dp/B000CCW2VG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1230046507&sr=1-1
apparently you can't get it anymore except as a twofer with "Thoth."

Came across a bunch of other interesting stuff when searching for "Marjoe" - too easy to spend a bunch of money - I really need to learn to check the library *first*.....!

[uponit7771]

13. WOW!! I didn't even know Warren WROTE that book!!!!! MY GOODNESS!! Know WONDER!!!

...This makes sense, HELL NO Obama didn't know Warren was a flamer thrower.

TPDL is a decent book and doesn't come off bigoted at all, I'm convinced Obama didn't know but that's STILL no excuse when Obama has acess to prominant members of the LBGT community.

[gristy]

11. Yes. You are the only one.

[uponit7771]

15. Obviously not and I liked TPDL, it's a good book written by a total asshole.

[ecstatic]

17. No he isn't. Not all of us keep up with the latest fundy preachers

My knowledge of all of them is very very slim. I honestly never even heard of him until the forum Obama did with McCain.

[gristy]

19. That's just my standard smart-ass answer to a silly question.

Sorry!

[uponit7771]

25. I wasn't trying to be silly and not everyone keeps up with fundie nuts

[uponit7771]

22. I've read TPDL and didn't know Warren WROTE the book.

[Metric System]

14. Didn't you hear that Melissa Etheridge says he's A-OK? Oh, and buy her new album!!!

[uponit7771]

16. I don't know who she is, I don't listen to her genre of music. I didn't know till a couple of minute

...ago that Warren wrote TPDL either.

[boppers]

21. I didn't know.

I also thought the McClurkin outrage was reactionary "politics" from the Hillary camp.

Whoo-boy, was I wrong.

[Starry Messenger]

26. I knew he had supported Prop 8 out here in California.

I really wish Obama had been more sensitive about this. It really sucks. Tonight a DU-er lwfern tipped me to the fact that Warren still has the video telling his flock to vote Yes on 8 on the Saddleback site:

http://www.saddlebackfamily.com/blogs/newsandviews/index.html?contentid=1502

In it he says that both candidates agree with him that Gay Marriage is wrong. It's really manipulative language. I'm embarrassed he's being honored like he is.

[uponit7771]

28. Someone made the point earlier that Obama WOULD have been more sensitive if he had someone from the

...LGBT community in his inner circle.

I pray that he AND Warren have learned something, at least Warren has changed his website and took at the point of him excluding gays from becoming members of his "flock"

[Starry Messenger]

29. I really hope so.

Although I am cynical about Warren changing his website. I think he's doing it to avoid greater media exposure for the bigot he is, before the main event. I hope Obama will learn from this as well. I'm realizing how hard it is to make people look at this Prop 8 issue just here at DU. But one person at a time, I guess. I'm not gay, and this has been an eye-opening week in this forum.

[uponit7771]

31. Same here, married black male Christian but I NOW can see the bigotry directed at the LGBT...

...community in order for the far right to get votes. It sounds like the Southern Strategy but using gay people instead of black people.

[Starry Messenger]

34. Yes, good point about the Southern Strategy.

The far right will stop at nothing. It's utterly shameless.

[Gregorian]

30. Up until now he was sort of a hero of mine.

His Purpose Driven Life is one incredible book. In a way I'm glad I discovered his flaws.

The weird part is, the person who turned me on to his book is a woman who is quite "fundyish", a staunch Democrat, runs a battered woman's shelter, white as chalk with a black son. Go figure. We come in all colors and flavors. It's hard to pigeonhole people.

And I thought his book was one of the most accurate takes on the bible of all times. Maybe I'm just glorifying what I recall of it. Which isn't much since it was quite a while ago that I read parts of it.

I'm glad to find out he's not perfect. In fact, quite far from it. It's not ok.

[uponit7771]

32. MAN!! I just found out IN THIS POST that the Warren Obama invited is the one who wrote TPDL! It's a

...good book and I have the same take on it so now I'm more convinced that Obama didn't vet Warren properly and is maybe learning a hard lesson.

I'm disappointed in the invitation to someone who is so bigoted towards gays as not to allow them to become members of his church ....until this week. JC did say he without sin cast the first stone and it sounds like Warren has been throwing stones at the LGBT community for a while.

[Crooked Moon]

33. poor vetting: same excuse with mcclurkin

The Advocate: How did this happen? Was Mr. McClurkin vetted?

Senator Obama: Obviously, not vetted to the extent that people were aware of his attitudes with respect to gay and lesbians, LGBT issues -- at least not vetted as well as I would have liked to see.

Having said that, we viewed this simply as an opportunity to have a gospel concert as part of our overall outreach, and since he was singing at a concert along with a number of other artists, as opposed to being a spokesperson for us, probably it didn’t undergo the same kind of vet that someone who was serving as a surrogate for me might have.

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid50021.asp

[uponit7771]

35. You know, it'd prolly be good for Obama to get someone who is from the LGBT into his inner circle. I

...vote for Maddow....:-)

[Maven]

36. Obama is a highly intelligent, well informed person.

He absolutely knew what Warren's position was on these issues. Count on it.

[uponit7771]

37. Unnn, seein that he's made this mistake before with his own pastor and McClurkin I'll give him th...

...benefit of the doubt...for the last time. He needs to get better vetters for the religious community thought.

[Recursion]

39. Obama made a statement when he went to Warren's church in 2006

That he didn't agree with Warren on gay & lesbian rights. Obama knows Warren is wrong about LGBT rights; Obama is willing to work with him on climate change and poverty. This is exactly the kind of "find common ground" stuff Obama has been talking about the whole time; I'm not sure what people expected.

Reaching across the aisle necessarily means dealing with homophobes and misogynists. If we didn't want that we shouldn't have picked an across-the-aisle-reacher