How pro?
In 2000 he gave a speech at the general convention of the United Methodist Church calling for gay clergy.
In 2006, he joined Coretta Scott King and Representative John Lewis in a call to African-Americans to support full legal and social equality for lesbian and gay Americans and to oppose the federal marriage amendment.
Website Gayboomers has announced their opinion of the man with the title of their article about him: Pro-Gay Lowery to deliver benediction at Obama's inaugural.
In 2004, he told ABC News he supports same sex marriage:
When you talk about the law discriminating, the law granting a privilege here, and a right here and denying it there, that's a civil rights issue. And I can't take that away from anybody.
I don't know why Obama is not mentioning the stance of the man who pronounces the benediction. I abhor Warren. I fully understand why the GLBT community is up in arms over his appointment. I wish Obama could have found someone who was not hateful on GLBT issues to make his point about working on world health and world poverty. But I don't believe he has completely thrown GLBTs under the bus, either, not when this great man will be speaking there. There are no major areas of hate in Reverend Lowery's career. He has been an activist all of his life, and blasted Bush on the Iraqi War at Coretta Scott King's funeral, with Bush just a few feet away.
Sure, the media would like us to believe Obama's turning his back on the GLBT community. They sell more of their crap this way. I wish someone would call them on their blatant disregard of Reverend Lowery. Maybe a hint that they're giving their coverage to the loud white guy would shake them up.
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Comments
So no - it's NOT a "premature panic", Dwight. What it's about is, at best, Obama being highly thoughtless about the concerns of a significant percentage of the people who supported him over those unprincipled triangulators the Clintons. If Obama's other actions since winning the election hadn't been repeated slaps in the face of the Progressives and Gays who supported him from the beginning (picking pretty much a Center-Right Cabinet with no real Progressive or Gay voices), then maybe choosing Warren to deliver the Invocation while barely mentioning Lowery might not have been the flashpoint it's become.
As I keep telling Tammy (and Bruce), "It's not about repudiating Obama before he takes power. It's about holding his feet to the fire based on the choices he's made so far so he doesn't think that, like the Clintons do, he can throw Gays and the Left under the bus with impunity because 'Where else are they going to go?'."
But unlike Tim, I don't agree that Obama has repeatedly slapped progressives and gays since winning. What he's been doing is what he said he would do: create as much of a bipartisan government he can. My hubby the Jacobin would love to see the right out on their buttocks, but without their support Obama won't be able to get any of the work done that so very badly needs to be done to stop our skid into the crapper.
"First we fix the economy," I tell him. "Then you build the guillotines." Though I do know, sadly, that everyone but us malcontents will have forgotten the many offenses of the Bush years by then.
But right now? I think we need to hold Obama's feet to the fire on this - so he'll remember the heat the next time he thinks about tossing the Gay and Progressive communities under the bus so he can be "inclusive" to homophobic Religious Right bigots.
This sentence of yours pulled me up: I wish Obama could have found someone who was hateful on GLBT issues to make his point about working on world health and world poverty. Is it missing a not? Or am I reading it wrong?
I don't know - I've been under a rock lately - but someone told me about Warren diverting his efforts to poverty and AIDS relief. No one is going to change Warren's (or a lot of those who listen to him) mind about glbt issues, but this could be a point for unity between the glbt community and those who are a little more openminded (or maybe I'm being too optimistic).
Anyway, I think you totally hit the nail on the head. It's really aggravating to hear the media take this and blow it up and not point out what people might not know, that, imo, makes things a lot more balanced (thank you for the links - they were very interesting and I feel a lot more informed).
In the Obama transition team talking points that have showed up in the blogosphere, here are the two points that most interested me in their explanation of Obama's choice:
>>• Pastor Rick Warren has a long history of activism on behalf of the disadvantaged and the downtrodden. He's devoted his life to performing good works for the poor and leads the evangelical movement in addressing the global HIV/AIDS crisis. In fact, the President-elect recently addressed Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum on Global Health to salute Warren's leadership in the struggle against HIV/AIDS and pledge his support to the effort in the years ahead.
• The President-elect disagrees with Pastor Warren on issues that affect the LGBT community. They disagree on other issues as well. But what's important is that they agree on many issues vital to the pursuit of social justice, including poverty relief and moving toward a sustainable planet; and they share a commitment to renewing America's promise by expanding opportunity at home and restoring our moral leadership abroad.<<
In other words, yes, Obama chose Warren for his HIV/AIDS work and his anti-poverty work. And he chose someone from the really ugly side of things for the last two years.
If it didn't, how would you know it was working? ;-\
It always fascinated me that places like Japan lacked that completely. When the Shogun came to town, nobody mocked him. He didn't have to be down-and-out to gain empathy. He was the SHOGUN, and was treated as such.
Ah, human culture, how you fascinate me....
"The nail that sticks up, gets hammered down."
You're the first to actually put it sanely.
All the emails/blog posts I've seen have been belligerently angry people who make themselves look just as bad as the right wing fundamentalists and see this in a very narrow-minded way. Resulted in my writing a rant towards my own political affiliation in my own LJ, and feeling like a Bad Liberal. Lord knows I don't like the guy, but it's not the biggest issue in my mind right now and we are completely ignoring the Bigger Picture when we focus only on the bad dude giving that one speech, and not seeing what you saw with Lowery.
Oh I love how the media skews things.
I also think the Warren thing is purely an act of political symbolism. People have been complaining that Obama wasn't being as bipartisan as he promised for weeks and those same people are up in arms about this. It's clearly a tactic to gain the trust of the right-wingers who hate him.
I've gotten so many emails from HRC and the likes about how this is the end of the world, and Obama has thrown us under the bus, and how I should spend time writing angry letters to him. I, being queer identified, understand the emotion... However don't we have higher priorities than this? Maybe trying to overturn prop 8? We're looking just as bad as them!
And maybe we should give the guy a chance to actually BE president before we start trying to find opportunities to throw him out the window.
Actually, the person who drew my attention to Lowery is the person currently screaming loudest in my ear, my beloved Spouse Creature. He's just never gotten over missing the French Revolution.
And maybe we should give the guy a chance to actually BE president before we start trying to find opportunities to throw him out the window.
That would be lovely.
Inauguration has already been changed from March to January. Time to shift it to November!
CoughBushcough. CoughConscienceClausecough.
....cough. Yeh, that one is my bugbear at the moment. I think it'll lead to major problems if Obama can't/doesn't shoot it down quickly.
Plus Warren is Really Truly Screwed now with some aspects of the Right Wing Nuttery crowd.
Hmm. That might also be a worthwhile consequence. I might be naive about this, of course, as Tim's just warned me...
Exactly.
People have been talking about Warren opening the door to the new administration, but to me it's Warren who closes the door to the old, and Lowery who opens the door to the new. If we're going to be symbolic, and alla that.
Plus Warren is Really Truly Screwed now with some aspects of the Right Wing Nuttery crowd.
This gives me a very large happy.
And you know what, I'm actually quite thrilled by BOTH of Obama's choices. I think it shows a willingness and a commitment to work with people of different backgrounds and belief systems to focus on the issues that they do agree on.
Is it okay with you if I link this in my blog?