Article VI Blog

The amount of discussion swirling around Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to pray at the inauguration is to my eyes amazing.  Usually there are a few harrumphs from some corner over the president-elect’s choice to which everyone grants a tolerant smaile and then we move on.

But not this year.  This year the LGBT community has decided to turn the inaugural prayer into a national referendum on gay marriage.   In the first place it is not; it is in many senses a private choice – it is who the person about to assume the most powerful office in the land wants to have pray, publicly, FOR THEM.  It is still a person assuming the office and even though I think I am going to diagree with this one far more than I will agree, he needs and deserves prayer.  And I, for one, want him to have it.

Three quick thoughts:

While there certainly are pastors in this world that support gay marriage, they are a distinct and very small minority of pastors in the nation – a much smaller minority of pastors than even supporters of gay marriage in the general populace.  Talk about your litmus tests!  For the LGBT community to get what they want here, the pool of possibilities is extrardinarily small

Secondly, I am kind of aghast that even conservatives are letting the libs frame this discussion.  Consider this discussion thread that Ramesh Ponnuru strated at the Washington Post:

But here’s one way of looking at it. Obama stood with liberals in opposition to the proposition. But he does not regard supporters of the proposition, even vocal ones, as irredeemable bigots. By giving Warren a platform, Obama is not endorsing his views–but he is saying that those views are a legitimate part of the national conversation.

That’s not a snub of liberals. But it is a swipe at one type of liberalism–the type that has been working to get people fired for making donations to the campaign for the initiative, that has attacked the Mormon Church for its support of it, and so forth.

Not many liberals have spoken up against these tactics. Liberals should not be surprised that Obama has refused to join an effort that implicitly brands a majority of the voters of California, of all places, as at best the dupes of bigots. But those liberals who are engaged in that effort should indeed feel snubbed–as they deserve to be.

I honestly don’t think Obama gave Prop 8 or gay marriage in general one whit of thought when he chose Warren for this slot.   Despite the heat – it’s a local issue, confined to a few states where the debate is red hot, but it is still just a few states – Newsweek not withstanding.  There is no credible effort to do anything about gay marriage one way or the other on the federal level.  Lots of people are trying to get something started, but so far no one is getting any real traction nationally.  Obama has bigger fish to fry and Warren is a superb choice (I do hate saying that about this guy) in that big picture.

This fallout is typical of the naricissim that defines the LGBT movement and much of liberalism in general.   When we join this conversation in this fashion we feed that self-indulgent form of public debate.  Sometimes you just have to let the kids have their tantrums and ingnore them (which is what Obama is doing) otherwise you just encourage the next one.

Finally, consider that to engage in this debate now opens the door for future, even more unseemly debates.  Dream with me if you will of a Mitt Romney inaugural in 2012.  Suppose President-elect Romney choses one of the Quorum to pray at his inaugural.  Undoubtedly, there will be a segment of my evangelical bethren that will become incensed.  If we engage the LGBT community in this debate now, we give credence to those small-minded objectors in the future.  Should this dream ever become a reality, Mitt Romney deserves to have whomever he wants to pray for him at his inaugural, even if I have theological disagreements with his choice.

This should be a non-debate.

Posted in Political Strategy, Proposition 8, Religious Bigotry | 2 Comments » |  Print this post |  Email This Post

What to make of Barack Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration?  The far left is up in arms because Warren strongly supported Prop 8.   To conservatives, on the other hand, Warren is “America’s Pastor” and in the choice Obama seeks,  so far successfully, to solidify his position with the average Evangelical.   In a word, this is a “Clintonesque” move.

You remember Bill Clinton, he drew a majority of evangelical votes right up until his personal pecadillos left him awash in a large wave of personal immorality.  Which also makes Obama’s move here all the more interesting as the Blagojevich scandal opens the curtain on the incredibly corrupt business of politics in Chicago.

Obama is clearly “triangulating” here.    Bottom line is this: It will be great to hear Rick Warren pray on inauguration day, make no bones about it.  And we can be eternally grateful we will NOT be hearing Jeremiah Wright.   But this decision on the part of Obama cannot and should not be used to judge the extent or quality of his faith, or policies.  This is political theater and nothing else.

Posted in Doctrinal Obedience, Political Strategy, Proposition 8 | 5 Comments » |  Print this post |  Email This Post

At the Heritage Foundation, Ryan Messmore and Thomas Messner have posted an open memo to President-elect Barack Obama.  They offer him three strong suggestions regarding the proterction of religious freedom in the United States.  We especially like this one:

Call on all citizens to respect the ability of religious citizens to participate in public policy debates–including debates about marriage–without fear of intimidation and reprisal. You correctly stated that it would be a “practical absurdity” for Americans not to “inject their ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates.”[22] Regrettably, there are many in America who express contempt and disdain toward those who bring their faith to bear on their politics. That attitude can encourage a climate of hostility and intimidation.

Amen to that!

Posted in Proposition 8, Religious Bigotry | Comment on this post » |  Print this post |  Email This Post

Well, the opposition to Prop 8 has finally retaliated to last week’s “No Mob Violence” ad that was placed in the NYTimes in defense of Mormons and their role in the passage of that state constitutional amendment.  I first noted the meme in an op-ed in a paper from Fall Church, MA.  It was written by a guy by the name of Wayne Besen.  Besen was so enraged that he took his arguments to a bit of the bigger time in an ad he placed in the Salt Lake Tribune which resulted in a Peggy Fletcher Stack story in that same SLTrib.  We’ll focus on the Stack/SLT piece, but Besen’s comment in it and Besen’s op-ed argue essentially the same things, and you can look for more of it as this moves forward.  There are two basic lines of response.  The first:

Those protests were “remarkably peaceful,” Besen said. “They took isolated incidents of people misbehaving and exploited that to make it seem like mob violence. It is immoral.”

Protests are, in and of themselves, on the edge of violence.   Further, actual violence has been far from isolated.  Vandalism was fairly widespread, traffic was disrupted, people have lost their jobs, and many active in the YES campaign received threatening phone calls or direct personal threats.  So maybe it was not the Watts Riots or the post-RodneyKing riots, but it was definitively a mob-based effort to enforce its will with inherent threats of violence at those extreme levels.  This is a bit like arguing that because I only beat someone up, it’s not that big a deal when compared to Charles Manson.

But the argument that is a problem is this one:

Beyond the issue of whether gay protests constituted a “mob,” Besen argues that the signers of the earlier ad are hypocrites for saying they will not use anti-religious rhetoric.

“These new defenders of the Mormon faith have long been the most prolific Mormon bashers in the nation,” Besen said. “They have nothing in common but their anti-gay rhetoric. Promoting legal discrimination [against gays] with a group that would happily discriminate against you is a strategic disaster in the long run.”

That, dear friends, leaves a mark, though it is more limited than Besen would have us believe.  Most of the signatories to that ad were “neutrals” during the Romney primary campaign.  This is the old, tired and less-than-courageous stance taken by the majority of Evangelicals – “Mormons are not at all like us, but itsOKtovoteforone.”  But one signatory needs this heat in a big way.

Marvin Olasky signed the ad as a faculty member of King’s College in NYC.  Fair enough, but Mr. Olasky is also the Editor-in-Chief of World Magazine, home of Joel Belz now infamous and highly bigoted piece.  In fairness, Belz is the founder of World and may simply have “pulled rank” on Olasky,but if the NYTimes ad reflects Olasky’s true stance on the subject then his resignation from World should have followed closely on the heals of the appearance of the Belz piece, if not preceeded it, as he would have known it was coming.

As things now stand, Olasky presence at both World and in this ad serve only to negate the effectiveness of the ad.  What is really sad is it was easy to see this coming.  Lowell and I discussed it when the ad appeared, but we did not write about it because we did not want to give ammunition to the other side.  But now that the shot has been fired, it is time for Olasky to stand up and be counted.

But even the neutrals harm us – their stance during the primary compagn does lend the ad an air of “convenience” that robs it of the passion and power that it would otherwise have.  Political allies are political allies and we have to defend them in all aspects of the political arena, or we lose our effectiveness.  This ad represents a correct first step for the “neutrals” to start to build that strong defense.

But for Olasky, the task is much harder.  He needs to make things clear on where he stands and he needs to repudiate the wrong that has gone before.

Posted in Proposition 8 | 2 Comments » |  Print this post |  Email This Post

Regular readers know that around this blog, Mike Huckabee has received a great deal of criticism for his handling, or should we say not-handling, of religion, and specifically Mitt Romney’s religion during the primary races.  The Hucksters motivations have alwasy been at question.  Was he truly a religious bigot or just willing to provide them cover for his own benefit?  Did he really want to be president or was he just building “Q” for his current TV gig?  Did he hate Romney for his religion or his money?

Well,  Eric Trager, writing on the Contentions blog of Commentary magazine, has looked at the Huckabee TV show and concludes:

Does Huckabee really think that too much money is what causes someone to kill? Either way, one is forced to wonder whether Huckabee’s idea of 2012 means a run at the White House or, alternatively, a run at Maury Povich’s job.

Outside of being very funny and very biting commentary, this does point out that like anyone, the Huckster motivations are complex and likely a mixture of all the things we are concerned about. I do think Huckabee has an obsession with money. I thinks it fits with his “Romney never levels with people” comment as much as the odious Belz “Mormons lie” meme.

None of this is to excuse what was done on the religion front, just to point out that people are complex.  Well, that and that Huckabee should not get near a primary in ’12.

Posted in Candidate Qualifications, Religious Bigotry | 1 Comment » |  Print this post |  Email This Post

ArticleVI webmaster Okie on the Lam reports:

Back on Nov. 14th, a mere ten days after Proposition 8 was passed by a majority of California voters, I wrote about Marjorie Christoffersen, co-owner of El Coyote Mexican Cafe, who was harassed and bullied by gay and lesbian patrons for donating a measly $100 to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign. Well, the harassment, and subsequent boycott of the cafe by LGBT customers worked. Christoffersen has resigned from the place she has worked for the past 17 years.

This is absolutely unbelievable.   While the several artisitc directors that have been forced from their jobs is awful and wrong (I mean there is that whole free speech and religious freedom thing), at least they were high profile public jobs and the pressure applied could be arguably “justified” as public protest, but this is just some poor woman with a restaurant no one outside of the neighborhood ever heard of and a pittance of a donation.

This is not protest, its petulance – childish, temper-tantrum, bawling petulance.

How are we supposed to take the opposition seriously when they behave like children?

Posted in Proposition 8 | Comment on this post » |  Print this post |  Email This Post