Gay Radicalism Key to Left's Agenda Under Obama

As regular readers know, the next stage of the left's agenda emerged on November 5th, the day after the election when Democrats saw the historic victory of the country's first black president. Obama's win was nevertheless regarded as "bittersweet" for many, as voters in California also passed Proposition 8, which restored marriage traditionalism to the state's constitution.

Since then, we've seen a non-stop campaign of intimidation and show trials against the "bigots" and "homophobes" who exercised their rights by contributing to and voting on the passage of the initiative. We've already seen a lot of grumbling on the left during the Obama transition, of course. Leftists have been boiling with resentment over the "lack of representation" by "progressives" in the cabinet, as we've seen according to story after story in the press. But Barack Obama's selection of Pastor Rick Warren to deliver an invocation at the inaugural is probably the best indicator of the all-or-nothing battle the left has begun to wage even before the new Democratic regime is installed.

For the second day in a row, Memeorandum has been flooded with blog posts and essays decrying the Warren pick. Sarah Posner, at the Nation, gets right to the nub of the matter:

Now it has officially gone too far: Democrats, in their zeal to appear friendly to evangelical voters, have chosen celebrity preacher and best-selling author Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration.

There was no doubt that Obama, like every president before him, would pick a Christian minister to perform this sacred duty. But Obama had thousands of clergy to choose from, and the choice of Warren is not only a slap in the face to progressive ministers toiling on the front lines of advocacy and service but a bow to the continuing influence of the religious right in American politics. Warren vocally opposes gay marriage, does not believe in evolution, has compared abortion to the Holocaust and backed the assassination of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Warren has done a masterful job at marketing himself as a "new" kind of evangelical with a "broader agenda" than just fighting abortion rights and gay marriage. He dispatches members of his congregation to Africa to perform AIDS relief and has positioned himself as a great crusader for bringing his "purpose-driven" pabulum to the world.

Faith in Public Life, a nonprofit cultivated by the Center for American Progress, was so wowed by Warren that it co-sponsored a presidential forum in August at Warren's Saddleback Church. There, his "broader agenda" included asking Obama whether he believed that life began at conception (which Warren believes, he says, based on the Bible, not science) and to ruminate on the nature of evil. (As for Pastor Rick, he believes the Bible dictates that the US government "punish evildoers," as in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.) ....

Warren protests that he's not a homophobe; it's just that two dudes marrying, in his mind, is indistinguishable from an adult marrying a child, a brother marrying his sister, or polygamy. He thinks his AIDS relief efforts represent an elevated form of Christianity over those non-evangelical do-gooders whom he compares to "Marxists" because they're more interested in good works than salvation. The rejection of the "social justice" gospel in favor of the salvation-focused evangelicalism that has come to dominate the definition of "Christian" lies at the heart of the religious right agenda to marginalize liberalism and harness its political power.

Warren represents the absolute worst of the Democrats' religious outreach, a right-winger masquerading as a do-gooder anointed as the arbiter of what it means to be faithful. Obama's religious outreach was intended, supposedly, to make religious voters more comfortable with him and feel included in the Democratic Party. But that outreach now has come at the expense of other people's comfort and inclusion, at an event meant to mark a turning point away from divisive politics.

Everyone from the lowest of the 9th tier bloggers to the biggest headliners on the web has weighed in on the debate.

And while it's probably too late for gay activists and their radical backers to get Obama to change his mind on Warren, the episode will be used as a stepping stone to an even higher stage of secular radicalism under the coming political order: the total eradication of religion in public life. Steve Benen sponsors that meme:

This is the wrong fight: The real problem isn't with who will give the invocation, but rather, the fact that there's going to be an invocation in the first place. We had 144 years of presidential inaugurations, dating back to George Washington, in which there was no invocation and no benediction. This shouldn't be a fight over which pastor delivers the prayer; this should be a fight over the official prayer itself.

This is the face of our enemies, folks, that's right ... the enemy of American traditionalism and values of faith and decency. The gay activists and their nihilist proponents are positioning for a battle of the highest stakes, and they'll take no prisoners. Where once this country was considered "one nation under God," now were a people divided between those who may find guidance from above and those who would hand down retribution on people who dare even seek such spiritual solace.