www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1867664,00.html
successful pastor whom the President-elect has asked to pray at his Inauguration, about homosexuality. he has a church "full of people who are caring for gays who are dying of AIDS"; Then they get to die of AIDS -- possibly under the care of Rick Warren's congregants. And when they go to hell, they won't be quite as far down in Satan's pit as other evildoers.
The Global Ambition of Rick Warren But Warren did have a message of hope for gays: they can magically become heterosexuals. And then he went right for the ick factor, the way middle-school boys do: "Certain body parts are meant to fit together."
told Beliefnet that he thinks allowing a gay couple to marry is similar to allowing "a brother and sister to be together and call that marriage." He then helpfully added that he's also "opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage." The reporter, who may have been a little surprised, asked, "Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?" I wish the reporter had asked the next logical follow-up: If gays are like child-sex offenders, shouldn't we incarcerate them? Rick Warren may occasionally sound more open-minded than Jerry Falwell, another plump Evangelical who once played a prominent role in US politics.
Gays and lesbians are angry that Barack Obama has honored Warren, but they shouldn't be surprised. Obama has proved himself repeatedly to be a very tolerant, very rational-sounding sort of bigot. He is far too careful and measured a man to say anything about body parts fitting together or marriage being reserved for the nonpedophilic, but all the same, he opposes equality for gay people when it comes to the basic recognition of their relationships. He did throughout his campaign, one that featured appearances by Donnie McClurkin, a Christian entertainer who preaches that homosexuals can become heterosexuals. Obama gave a wonderfully Russellian defense of Warren on Thursday at a press conference. Americans, he said, need to "come together" even when they disagree on social issues. "That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about," he said. Russell would often use the same tactic to deflect criticism of his civil rights record. It was a distraction, Russell said, from the important business of the day uniting all Americans. Obama also said today that he is a "fierce advocate for equality" for gays, which is -- given his opposition to equal marriage rights -- simply a lie. It recalls the time Russell said, "I'm as interested in the Negro people of my state as anyone in the Senate. Many gays I know gave money to Obama, which mystified me. The favored explanation was that he doesn't "really" believe gays shouldn't be allowed to marry; People seemed to feel that once he had won, he would find a way -- in his contemplative style -- to help convince Americans that gay people really do deserve basic equality. Instead, he has found a way to insult gay people deeply. In California, some gay activists are planning to put marriage on the 2010 ballot so that Proposition 8 -- which (thanks partly to Warren's support) passed last month, banning marriage equality in the state -- can be undone. Gays will need to reach older, religious, and African-American voters in order to overturn Prop. If gays hoped that President Obama would help, they may want to reconsider. The only piece of good news is that Obama loves to raise money, and he won't want significant gay donors to stop organizing fundraisers for him. Having picked Warren to pray at the Inauguration and Republican Robert Gates to stay on at the Department of Defense (where Gates will likely continue the policy of investigating gay service members -- a policy he has the legal power to end with the stroke of a pen), Obama will now have to do something nice for the gays.
brings news that some retired military leaders are supporting William White, an openly gay man who is chief operating officer of the Intrepid Museum Foundation, to be Secretary of the Navy.
That means there are some places we can go and look for evidence for past life -- if it ever existed." RICHARD ZUREK, a project scientist working on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which found rocks bearing carbonate minerals on the red planet.
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