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Loading ...Besen:Rick Warren’s carnival of confession
The Washington pundits who brought us George W. Bush’s presidency and the Iraq fiasco have reached a consensus that John McCain came across as “more presidential” at mega church pastor Rick Warren’s faith forum.
This conclusion is true if we are still defining “presidential” as a cocksure windbag who bonds with the common people by pandering to the lowest common denominator.On cue, the media judged the candidates by how fun they’d be at a barbecue. McCain was lauded as a “commanding figure” while Obama was derided for coming across as “professorial.” In today’s politics, if you demonstrate your I.Q. your career may be through and a candidate can now admit having smoked marijuana, but not that he has experimented with arugula.
In 2000, the media gave Bush an easy ride because he was affable, but have learned nothing after his presidency turned out to be laughable. We watched Bush strut in his flight suit on an aircraft carrier with a gigantic banner claiming “Mission Accomplished.” When it was clear that the mission had hardly begun, Bush thumped his chest and challenged the insurgents to “bring it on.”
Well, they obliged and now thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead.
After nearly eight years of alienating the world with cowboy diplomacy, the media portrays Obama’s tendency to be humble as a political stumble. Meanwhile, McCain talks tough to the Russians as they continue to rush into Georgia.
At the forum, without hesitation he said he is going to defeat evil. But how does he plan to make good on his shallow sound bite with our military tied up in Iraq and our economy on the rocks?
Vladimir Putin has shrugged off the McCain crowd, essentially saying, “You and what army is going to stop us?” McCain must be acting like a galloping stallion because he knows of secret battalions that can be called on to defends the budding democracies in the Caucasus region.
At the forum, McCain also got a big hand by vowing to continue Bush’s policy of ensuring that tycoons can live nearly tax free. Such economic policies combined with Republican deregulation have sold out our country and helped fuel the rise of China – which not only has more gold medals, but owns much of America’s gold. Perhaps McCain remains so bubbly and blissfully unaware of the housing bubble because he has several million-dollar homes. Yet the media still builds him up as the common man ready to storm the gates, even though he has more in common with Bill Gates.
Of course, the enablers of America’s decline are Evangelical Christians who eschew their economic interests in favor of their bizarre moral fetishes. This penchant for the puritanical was exemplified by Warren’s voyeuristic question asking each candidate, “What would be the greatest moral failure in your life.”
Predictably, this carnival of confession and moral spectacle accomplished nothing and failed to reveal any juicy new “sins” that were not already on public record. Fresh from discussing the implosion of his marriage – a huge biblical abomination – McCain spoke out against gay people marrying. In the backdrop of this event was a low level controversy where Jonathan Crutchley, the co-founder of the gay cruising site Man Hunt, gave a $2,300 donation to McCain. This was odd, considering McCain reconfirmed at the forum that he favored Supreme Court judges who had cast votes to outlaw sodomy – the very Man Hunt product that had made Crutchley rich.
Horrified, the other Man Hunt co-founder, Larry Basile, pressured Crutchley to resign as chairman of the company. While Crutchly has been reined in, a new Harris Poll shows that Obama has only 68-percent of the GLBT vote.
Sadly, 2008 is looking much like the last two elections, where a compliant media joins forces with chest thumping evangelicals and closeted homosexuals to further degrade America’s greatness. If McCain is inaugurated, we will all be invited to the barbecue on his million-dollar Arizona ranch, blissfully unaware that our future is the roasting pig with a rotten apple sticking out of its bloated mouth.
Of course, the further we sink into irrelevancy, the more faith forums we will see – even as the rest of the world loses faith in our ability to lead the world. While Rick Warren is an improvement over Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, he must teach evangelicals there is a better way than the selfishness of modern conservatism, or it will go down as his biggest moral failure.
I agree with the gentleman who stated our Constitutional law of seperation of state and church. Why do people use religious teachings to control others? Because they live in an environment at home allowing,nay demanding such obedience to old world views. This has been our world for centuries. We will not be changing oppinions any time soon as I see it. What I do is try to be a good person and live my life as stress free of all this negativity. Becoming irate just leads to a dissatisfied life. I said it before and say again we now have a President who wants to do away with animal protection and environmental protection to try satisfy voters with a deadly quick fix for oil and any resources for a population drowning in depression,growing poverty and for quite a few homelessness. What kind of world we want depends on what we value as humans. Obama is our best hope this time around,but I don’t believe any one person can change all the problems we face. Gay marriage is really not the most pressing issue we face. We need to be more with concerned with the majority of peoples around the world who are hungering,need fresh clean water and good housing and medical help. Don’t you agree that personal rights kind of hold a back seat to the real needs of our world. By the way, I do care strongly for equal rights for ALL PEOPLE. Thank you.
Thanks Doug, but I think that the candidates are running for President of the United States and not King of the World. I want them to be concerned with (first and foremost) the needs of our country.
Brad I agree with much of what you have to say. And Trace you make a valid point too.
I am sick of the mud slinging from the pundents on both sides; this article included.
Lets get back to the issues.
I am not voting for neither the Republican nor the Democrat. Independents make up a larger voting block then the Republican party and they should start voting for independent or 3rd party candidates.
I would suggest the stonewall dems and log cabin repubs both jump ship to either an independent or 3rd party candidate.
The dems take the stonewall crowd for granted and the repubs treat the log cabin guys like Rodney Dangerfield. Stop the Insanity people and get off the wheel vote for a another party.
Trace, sorry you did not get my message. I was not speaking of a world king. What are you’re issues that concern you more than those I stated? You failed to state them. Then it was right back to the race for the presidency. I guess maybe most Americans just want to fight each other and argue over who is right and who is wrong. In my opinion you’ve just confirmed what I wrote about. Being a gay man, I do worry alot about our rights as American citizens. Unfortunately our policitical priorities are set up against us. It’s all about money and power over the masses. I am from the generation that began to distrust any form of government that forced men to go to war over so called freedom from oppression under genocidal leaders around the world, Vietnam specifically.
I see from most letters that what matters most is Brittney and Lynsey Lohan. I read articles as above and just can’t believe we still have the same worthless drival as when I began to vote in 1972. Only the names change. Yes, may God help us all. Thanks again. Hope we all benefit some day soon. PEACE
Obama had only a slim chance from the beginning (notwithstanding the media hype and the polls). Now it appears that the constituencies he needed – including the queers, the feminists and and civil libetarians (anti-FSI types) – will give him less than 70% of their votes because he is not sufficiently pure on their (our) issues (and, for some, because he doesn’t wear a wig and pantsuits and lipsych Tammy Wynette). He is toast. The program now for the queer communities is to (1) elect a strong majority of liberal senators who can force McCain to nominate another Roberts/Alito rather than a Scalia/Thomas to replace each of the ‘liberal’ judges who’s going to leave the court in the next 4 years; and (2) do everything possible to defeat Prop 8 in CA. A McCain victory, a reversal on marriage in California, and center-right Senate (now or in 2 years), and the theofascists will claim a mandate to wipe out 3 decades of queer progress – including the real possibility that ‘Lawrence v. Texas’ will be reversed.
Wayne Besen Said: “It is crucial, in my view, that we elect Obama. He is not perfect, but he is much better than McCain, who will continue Bush’s policies and continue America on a downward spiral.”
EXACTLY
Gay issues aren’t the only issues faced in this country. Talking to Gay folks and reading the responses here, one might think Gay Marriage is the most imporant issue we’re facing.
Sorry folks. It’s not
Why, as a Democrat, am I hesitant to support Obama? A few reasons:
-Voted to support warrantless wiretapping
-Voted for the Cheney energy bill which gave huge tax breaks to big oil companies (which was why McCain voted against it).
-Now supports offshore drilling. I’m not a big fan of that since I live in the Florida Keys.
-Essentially shares the same position as McCain on same-sex marriage.
-On energy, he proposes a cap-and-trade system that will result in higher consumer energy costs but not necessarily lower carbon emissions. Under Obama’s plan, we will still have the same number of coal powered plants but a new line item surcharge on our bills. McCain’s plan to replace coal with nuclear energy will drastically reduce carbon emissions, and his initiative to create better batteries to store energy for electric cars would revolutionize the auto industry.
-Obama’s health care plan leaves millions without health care. McCain’s “prebate” system would cover everyone not eligible for Medicaid or other federal programs. Obama doesn’t understand that as long as uninsured people receive free care in emergency rooms, health care costs will continue to rise.
-Obama does not understand that dramatic increases in worker productivity are responsible for job losses, not jobs moving overseas. China has lost over twenty million manufacturing jobs over the past decade because robotic machines require less unskilled workers to build things. Some states depend on international trade, especially those that depend on tourism and agriculture.
-Obama wants to pull our troops completely out of Iraq. Excuse me, but didn’t we go in there and destroy their infrastructure, create insurgent groups and destroy civil order? Shouldn’t we at least consider that we might have some moral obligation to clean up our mess?
Obama has compromised on civil liberties and now offshore drilling. He wants to expand faith based initiatives that discriminate against gay people. In truth, some of the best justices on the Supreme Court that we have were appointed by Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
I’ve been a Democrat since developing an interest in politics, but this year the choices we have to make are far from cut and dry. Any candidate who vote to allow warrantless wiretapping is just as likely to compromise on abortion rights, among other things. Our right to due process is very clear in the Constitution, and if you can ignore that than why not the right to privacy?
During the primary, Obama’s supporters really didn’t care about his policy proposals, and laughed at Clinton for being so specific. Well, look at the specifics now. Still inspired?
“Maybe by the third time of being screwed while being asleep they may wake up, but you know how it is; make a mistake once and you learn, make the same mistake twice and you are stupid, make the same mistake three times and… What comes after stupid?”
Enslavement
I wasn’t surprised to hear the media pundits declare that McCain was the winner at the faith forum, in spite of how dogmatically and simplistically he framed his religious and social positions in order to win the favor of right-wing evangelicals. For decades, most of the pundits have been predisposed to give conservatives favorable spin and to declare Democrats the losers. They provided the same service for George W, even when he made an idiot of himself. But why is that?
In part, it’s because the major media outlets are now owned by large conglomerates which benefit hugely from Republican ideology and have no interest in providing alternate viewpoints. Plus, the pundits generally come from the same closed social circle, one which benefits from Republican hegemony.
But, more importantly, Republicans spent several decades investing in building a powerful political infrastructure, sometimes called the Noise Machine, that was designed to make scapegoats of Democrats and liberals for everything wrong in America, no matter how fatuous the claim (Katrina, for example, was blamed on liberals and gays). The machine was highly successful in moving Americans further and further to the right on a wide range of issues. While this was happening, Democrats and liberals sat complaisantly on their hands and did little to counteract it. Even worse, instead of standing loyally by their constituents as Republicans generally do with their own, Democrats regularly distanced themselves from the left and ran towards the elusive “moderate” voter who was being strategically moved further right by the Republicans.
Not surprisingly, the Republicans have been reaping the benefits of their investment and indoctrination strategies, while Democrats scratch their heads, wondering why Americans repeatedly vote against their own best interests and why the media pundits are predisposed to favor Republicans.
Wow. You went from the Iraq fiasco (the country we still control – ha ha ha) to “why don’t the other countries like us?” in five seconds flat.
And yet you managed to squeeze in the same lie that gay people are homogenized as liberals. Probably born liberals, not socialized ones. Funny how you stand with the Nature religious right over the liberal Nurture left on that.
Grow up.
The Unites States controls Iraq. Even FALN (remember those days)used to set bombs around the United States every now and then. Big deal.
Russia did not take over Georgia. They seem to be mulling over the danger of going that extra mile in fact. All the while our boys and girls wander around Baghdad.
Liberals like you are an embarrassment to the GLBT community.
Weak apologists
For once, stop all the high-pitched nagging and write one article about something about your country and your life that you are actually proud of.
Enough already! This Obama lauding must end! Any idiot can see the huge problems an Obama presidency would incur (if the legislature lets him have his way). I for one refuse to live in a welfare state where over half my paycheck goes directly to a worthless, bloated government. Everything Obama has said means higher and higher taxes, more government hand holding, and thus a decline in the economy (take note of places like Sweden, once on top of the world economically until they moved to the welfare system). An Obama presidency will speed the downfall of the United States’ economic empire. With this downfall, the lives of everyone, rich and poor, will be much worse. Please do not screw everyone over with a vote for Obama and his hand holding policies.
Civil Unions = lower taxes for gay couples
Obama= Civil Unions
No Civil Unions= high taxes for gay couples
McCain= high taxes
*** Wake-Up! The “small government” and “tax lessons” in politics passed down from your heterosexual Republican parents do not apply to LGBT.
Republicans want a bigger government to keep the LGBT community oppressed and will keep our families from enjoying the tax breaks and health insurance that heterosexual families enjoy this very second.
See what a bunch of assholes have done to you. Blame Obama, blame McCain, we all have done this to ourselves, so quitcherbitchin……..
Slick Willie Move Over, Here Comes Obama
By the way, did you see how Obama sold us out again to that lynch-mob of Bible-Nazis at the so-called “Faith Forum“ Saturday night August 16th, 2008?
Obama begins: “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.”
He is interrupted by the crowd’s thunderous applause and pig-like squeals.
Obama continues: “For me as a Christian it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”
He should have taken the opportunity to add: “…oh, and by the way, I am not a Muslim and I did not sleep with that woman, Monica Lewinsky.”
Wow! So Obama thinks that “God’s in the mix” at the “sacred union” of every hetero multiple-divorced and remarried – wedding farce, but God must be out to lunch at same-sex nuptial ceremonies. Or maybe God just passed out in the punch bowl there and forgot about us, or was buggering in the bushes at the park across the street with Mother Nature and lost track of the time so He couldn’t make our wedding.
God: “Oops! I missed your unholy wedding. Sorry, I couldn’t be in the “mix” at your non-sacred union. I got “mixed” up. Was it at two O’clock or three O’clock? My bad. Me damn me.”
So, in other words (Obama’s that is), God likes Straights. God not so fond of Homos. Our nuptials are not “sacred“, therefore they must be pagan or something. Hmmm…where’s a Wiccan priest when you need one?
Hard to believe Obama went to law school and doesn’t grasp the concept of Religious Marriages versus Civil Marriages — oh, and by the way, Obama’s own church supports the “sacred union” of same-sex marriages. So how does that jive with Obama’s “deeply held religious beliefs”? It certainly doesn’t come from his own denomination, the very liberal United Church of Christ. Gosh, I smell another slick Willie here.
Obama then says: “I am not someone who promotes same-sex marriage, but I do believe in civil unions. . . . I don’t think [they] inhibit in any way what my core beliefs are.” He says he can afford (some) civil rights to gay couples without compromising his faith.
ObamOz translation: My core beliefs (political strategy) that they (homos) are entitled to some civil rights (morally inferior) and that I must allow them to exist somewhere (civil unions – separate lunch counters, etc,), as long as it is not in our neighborhoods (marriage – equal rights – fairness). Therefore, fellow Bible Bigots, I’m just like you (opportunistic self-serving hypocrites). So, please don’t look at the Black man behind the curtain. This is Emerald City (the mass media) where all wicked witches wear the same fine Christian patriotic flag-penned clothing. Vote for me. I’m one of you. Really I am. I’ll even waterboard a transsexual while wiretapping their mother if it will convince the media that I’m not another liberal from Chi town with a mocca tan and pretty words; instead, I’m just one of the gang.
Oddly, the “Cretin Right“…oops!…I mean the Christian Right overwhelmingly supports McCain over Obama (imagine that) and yet here Obama is throwing raw meat to the very same wolves who would have our bones (and his) for breakfast. And there are still those who would support this hypocrite because Obama doesn’t have a problem with them sitting at the back of the bus — as long as they know their place. Jeeeze!
While I am concerned about the federal courts — the arena where our Constitutional rights will ultimately be re-discovered — I am convinced that Obama will do nothing for us while in office; neither will a Democratic-controlled congress — which almost immediately after election goes into a re-election mode.
Historically, the Congress has rarely passed any pro-civil rights legislation until well after the courts have struck down the last vestiges of discrimination. So don’t look to congress. But I do want my congressman/woman and my presidential candidate to go on record as fully supporting my constitutional birthright of full equality as an American citizen or they can pucker up to my posterior. Is that too much to ask? Or is that a betrayal of our community?
Now, before any argument is made concerning Republican versus Democratic judicial appointees, just remember a Republican nominated U.S. Supreme Court Justice (Anthony Kennedy – appointed by Ronald Regan) wrote the majority opinion in the pro-gay ruling in Romer -v- Evans and wrote the majority decision in striking down the sodomy laws nationwide in the Lawrence -v- Texas. And a Republican Chief Justice on the California Supreme Court wrote the deciding opinion decreeing same-sex marriage in that state.
And no, I am not a Republican. I have generally voted with the Democrats in most elections — although I am an Independent. But I will not allow my vote to be taken for granted and neither should any of you. If you demand to be heard, you just might be — if you don’t, then you make yourself even more irrelevant than you are now. That’s the real choice.
McCain, Obama, I do not believe either have any concern for America as their voting records show it. Obama is not a good choice for the LGBT community. Both these want to be communist do not like me or people like me. I am a lesbian who owns many guns and stands for real freedom for all. Obama and McCain are open border thugs. But I really did get a laugh Mr. Besen with your remark, “bizarre morel fetishes” concerning the religious goons.