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Sad news on the GLBT front: write to the Obama transition team
Reported this week: Obama is planning to include an invocation by Rick Warren in the inauguration process in January. Warren is someone who has used the pulpit to compare the loving relationships between GLBT couples to degrading activities such as incest and pedophilia.
It is becoming clear to me that decent treatment of gay families in this country is not just a civil rights issue. It's not just a separation of church and state issue, either. What we must as a society recognize is that churches who teach hatred of the gay minority, who teach that their love is an abomination, are fundamentally wrong to do so.
As Len pointed out to me last night, it was not so long ago that preachers across the country used the pulpit to speak out against mixed race couples, and mixed race marriage, using the bible to defend their bigotry and their prejudices. The same people who argued that people should not lay down with people of a different color, and who still preach that they should not lay down with someone of the same sex even if they are themselves homosexual in nature are, similarly, completely wrong.
You can find an argument against nearly everything in the bible. But as society has progressed, our interpretations and the translation of meaning according to an enlightened morality has thankfully moved forward. So we no longer stone our neighbors, and we no longer hang black men for sleeping with white women, and we need to stop punishing and demonizing gay people as well, recognizing that they are currently an oppressed minority, and our democracy is supposed to be better than that.
Let's make it so.
I encourage you to contact the transition team and let them know how you feel about Rick Warren's inclusion in the inauguration ceremony.
It is becoming clear to me that decent treatment of gay families in this country is not just a civil rights issue. It's not just a separation of church and state issue, either. What we must as a society recognize is that churches who teach hatred of the gay minority, who teach that their love is an abomination, are fundamentally wrong to do so.
As Len pointed out to me last night, it was not so long ago that preachers across the country used the pulpit to speak out against mixed race couples, and mixed race marriage, using the bible to defend their bigotry and their prejudices. The same people who argued that people should not lay down with people of a different color, and who still preach that they should not lay down with someone of the same sex even if they are themselves homosexual in nature are, similarly, completely wrong.
You can find an argument against nearly everything in the bible. But as society has progressed, our interpretations and the translation of meaning according to an enlightened morality has thankfully moved forward. So we no longer stone our neighbors, and we no longer hang black men for sleeping with white women, and we need to stop punishing and demonizing gay people as well, recognizing that they are currently an oppressed minority, and our democracy is supposed to be better than that.
Let's make it so.
I encourage you to contact the transition team and let them know how you feel about Rick Warren's inclusion in the inauguration ceremony.
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My first exposure to the ideas and ideals of Obama was in his religion speech. From that moment, I knew this was coming, and decided to accept it. I decided to accept it because he will serve the needs of sexual, racial and religious minorities, and give them a public voice. At the same time, since he is not President of Sweden, he has to give empty symbolism to the religious majority who are satisfied with it. That combination in itself is pretty darn amazing.
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