Friends of Rick Warren - Discussion of MLK Commemorative Service Appearance

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Fri Jan-02-09 08:38 AM
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Friends of Rick Warren - Discussion of MLK Commemorative Service Appearance

Friends of Rick Warren from American Leftist

Hat tips to Eli over at Left I on the News and Gaius at Undemocracy in America.

http://amleft.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_amleft_archive.html

From Reuters:

Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rain forest from destruction.

"(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed," the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration.

"The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less."

So, it seems that, when it comes to environmental issues and homophobia, the Pope and Rick Warren on the same page. Note also that Rick Warren has also been invited to give the keynote address at the Annual Martin Luther King Commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on January 19th. One can only imagine what the gay and lesbian community in Atlanta, and for that matter, elsewhere, feel about this voluntary legimization of one of the most notorious homophobes in this country .

Indeed, it is one of the most bizarre consequences of Obama's election, an emerging coalition of African Americans, descendants of the civil rights legacy of King, with fundamentalists, identified primarily for their bigotry towards gays and lesbians and hostility to reproductive rights. Interestingly, conservative Catholics remain in the background. Gaius observes that E. J. Dionne interprets it as an effort to generate fundamentalist support for a progressive economic program, but he remains dubious, as do I, and for good reason. Obama is, after all, a banker's president, as reflected by his moderate to conservative economic appointments.

Obama may achieve some short term tactical successes, but, in the longer term, it will be catastrophic. Beyond instigating conflict between African Americans and proponents of gay rights, such a coalition will crash into a brick wall of demography. Americans under the age of 40 are increasingly supportive of gay rights, more and more so as their age declines, and, consistent with such a stance, reject religious fundamentalism as well. Just as Southern Democrats branded the Democratic Party as a racist one for decades, Obama is in the process of staining the Democratic Party with homophobia.

There may be a compelling necessity for such an alliance. If Obama is going to implement economic policies primarily for the benefit of the financial elite, then, he requires something other than class interest to sustain his coalition. Conservative religious and social values, in other words. Hence, he has already displayed his willingness to use gays and lesbians, and their supporters, as foils to buttress his support in Middle America. But, in the end, as Tariq Ali often says in relation to some other superficially alluring, but ultimately impractical enterprise, it can only end badly.

..........

My comments and those of Coretta Scott Kings:

I for one do believe in the 14th Amendment as stated in this abstract which shows the connection between the two groups:

http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/8/7/4/8/p87480_index.html

Abstract:

While the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court to protect African American civil rights since the 1950s, it was first cited as protective of gay and lesbian civil rights only in 1996. This work analyzes the new social construction of gay and lesbian civil rights within the historical context of African American civil rights. I find that such a comparative analysis is key to understanding contemporary debates relating to same-sex marriage, since same-sex marriage policy is richly based upon the historical struggle in U.S. society to recognize interracial marriage. Furthermore, though the complicated hierarchy of legal case scrutiny created in recent decades by the Court seems incompatible with democracy and indicates to us that Fourteenth Amendment values of equal protection and due process cannot be taken at face value in the American system of government, I find that the Court's new inclusion, albeit limited, of gays and lesbians in the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment shows us that the U.S. Constitution can still be a significant and promising source of rights. The Court now understands sexuality, like race, as a fixed characteristic. By constructing gays and lesbians as a legal entity in need of protection, the Court is making it easier for them to challenge discrimination.

AND

Coretta Scott King on Gay Rights

Category: Gay Rights
Posted on: February 7, 2006
by Ed Brayton

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/02/coretta_scott_king_on_gay_righ.php

(snip)

Mrs. King spoke often to gay rights groups and always spoke out strongly for gay rights. In 1998, just a few days before the 30th anniversary of her husband's assassination, she noted the obvious similarities:

"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood."

She also noted that her husband believed that all struggles for equal rights were bound together and that it was necessary to fight against bigotry in all forms, not merely the form that affected you personally:

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny...I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be," she said, quoting her husband. "I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy."

And she pointed out that many gays and lesbians had fought for black civil rights, demanding that blacks return the favor:

"Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement," she said. "Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions."

But perhaps her most eloquent statement on the subject came in 1994, again invoking the words of her late husband in support of equal rights for all:

"For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law...I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." On another occasion he said, "I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible." Like Martin, I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others."

Coretta Scott King's strong and clear voice for freedom and equality will be sorely missed.

..........

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." MLK - Says it all!