Pastor Rick Warren issued a new video yesterday in which he accuses people who have called him out for his virulent anti-gay comments and views as engaging in "hate speech" and calling them "evil." So much for Obama's call to disagree without being disagreeable.
So in the world of Obama's BFF Rick Warren, equating gays with pedophiles and comparing gay marriage to incest gets you an honored seat at Obama's inauguration, but anyone who criticizes you for those views is engaging in "hate speech."
"A lot of you have written to me this week and said, 'Rick, how are you doing to respond to all these false accusations and attacks, outright lies, and hateful slander, and really a lot of hate speech.'"
Yes, when we point out that the website for Warren's Saddleback Church states that "someone unwilling to repent of their homesexual lifestyle would not be accepted at (sic) a member at Saddleback", Warren quickly pulls the language from his website and then accuses us of "outright lies" and "hate speech."
And it's interesting that Warren uses the term "hate speech," since he says that the only reason he supported Proposition 8 in California was because if Prop 8 did not pass then "any pastor could be considered doing hate speech if he shared his views that he didn’t think homosexuality was the most natural way for relationships." So in Rich Warren's world, church leaders will be legally prevented from engaging in free speech if gays get equal rights. So the only way to protect church leaders' free speech rights is to make sure gays don't get any rights. Got it.
In his latest video Warren goes on to accuse people like me who have called him out on his anti-gay views as engaging in "Christophobia," which he defines as "people who are afraid of any Christian." So that's Rick's cute little pun on the word "homophobia," only it ain't so funny. He says his response to those who criticize his homophobic views will be to "return good for evil," "return love for hate" and "overcome evil with good." In case you missed it, the "evil" and the "hate" would be me and others like me who dare to speak out against Warren's attacks against gay Americans and gay rights.
In defending his embrace an honoring of Pastor Rick Warren, Barack Obama stated that "What we have to do is create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans." President-Elect Obama, how exactly can such an atmosphere be created when I am called "evil" and a "Christobphobe" if I dare to criticize anything that Warren says about GLBT Americans and GLBT rights? As Richard Cohen put it in his Washington Post column today:
But what we do not "hold in common" is the dehumanization of homosexuals. What we do not hold in common is the belief that gays are perverts who have chosen their sexual orientation on some sort of whim. What we do not hold in common is the exaltation of ignorance that has led and will lead to discrimination and violence.
Finally, what we do not hold in common is the categorization of a civil rights issue -- the rights of gays to be treated equally -- as some sort of cranky cultural difference. For that we need moral leadership, which, on this occasion, Obama has failed to provide. For some people, that's nothing to celebrate.