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05/04/2009
'Ideological evanescence'? Try 'illogical denunciations of gay lives and loves!'
"[Rick Warren] has called issues like abortion, stem-cell research and euthanasia "nonnegotiable," while he has pursued his fight against AIDS and poverty. This ideological evanescence ensured that the left would be furious when Barack Obama asked Warren to offer the invocation at his Inauguration — and that the right would be furious when Warren accepted"
-Time magazine's Nancy Gibbs, writing about "Time 100" honoree Rick Warren
We respond:
"Saying that 'the left' was furious because of Pastor Warren's 'ideological evanescence' is kind of like saying that the bullied kid was pissed at his tormenter because the two had simple disagreements about who should get to spend the former's lunch money. Because just like in that schoolyard situation, the elementary reality of the Rick Warren invocation is that there were (and are) concrete, valid, and deeply personal reasons why many pro-acceptance folks -- left, right, and in-between -- were (and are still) miffed at Warren's prominence. These include:
-His now infamous pedophilia/incest/polygamy connection
-His claim that gays should not act on their truths, even if a biological basis is concretely pinpointed. A claim that also compared homosexuality with a straight man's supposedly natural inclination to sleep with lots of women.
-His campaigning for Prop 8. Campaigning that now, in the most hypocritical of fashions, he tries to deny.
-His church's refusal to allow for LGBT members
-And so on, and so on...
It may be easier to justify Pastor Warren's inclusion on the "Time 100" list if you paint him as an iconoclast who ruffles all sorts of feathers because of his failure to walk lock-step with certain ideas. But when talking about the invocation drama, which was 99% focused on his LGBT-centric missteps, it's disingenuous to act as if 'the left's questions and scrutiny were little more than partisan politics as usual. Call me a self-lover if you must, but I have a tough time seeing someone who tells international audiences that gay people should stifle the cores of their beings as one with whom I can or should just 'agree to disagree.'"
-Good As You's Jeremy Hooper, responding to what he sees as a trivialized Time magazine write-up
Your thoughts
'evanescence' spevanesence.... THIS IS ESSENTIAL, Jeremy! Happy Monday.
Posted by: LOrion | May 4, 2009 11:04:10 AM
I don't know all of the publications that are bedfellows, but Reader's Digest had a "lovely" article on Rick Warren a couple of months back - and happened to mention that their publisher was launching a monthly version of Warren's "Purpose-Driven Life."
Posted by: Bonnie_Half-Elven | May 4, 2009 12:25:52 PM
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