Asterisk

You heard about Rick Warren’s hilarious attempt at damage control, right? He stopped at a West Hollywood gay-owned thrift store and had his picture taken with a real live Homosexual. TMZ had the exclusive report along with a photo of him next to store manager Erol Sarabi.

[Warren] bought 8 to 10 books, two of which were his own (that doesn’t help with his Amazon ranking). Warren told Sarabi not to believe everything he reads, that he does a lot for AIDS research and was happy that Out of the Closet does free AIDS testing…

By the way, Warren gave a signed copy of his book to Sarabi. The inscription from the Bible, Proverbs 19:21: “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

Such a loving embrace.

**ahem**

Isn’t this whole thing just adorable? Either he thinks we’re stupid or he thinks the rest of America is stupid. I’m betting on both with a focus on the latter.

The good news is that he’s wrong. (Again.) In an interview with CBS News, Sarabi (the Homosexual Rick Warren touched) had this to say:

I can’t understand why [President-elect Obama] would pick somebody who would spew hate, spew homophobia.

22 days left to fix this, Mr. Obama.

I ran across it again this morning. “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”

It was in a blog (not linked here) bemoaning the death of America because of all the commies and heathens and whatnot. In the middle of the 2,000 word screed (And you thought I was long winded!) was a call to the canard. I made a smartass reply, as is my wont, but I couldn’t help but sigh at the outright hostility inherent to that phrase.

I’d put the issue away and gone about my business when I saw it again this afternoon, this time by a columnist in the Washington Times. Twice in one day was more than I could handle, so I’m writing about it.

In defense of Pope Benedict XVI’s Christmas Address of last week (Basically, The Pope says that the Catholic Church must “protect” creation from homosexuals and transsexuals; that we live in opposition to God.), columnist Jeffery T. Kuhner said:

Above all, however, he has carried the banner of peace and civilized, rational dialogue. He repeatedly – and unequivocally – has said the Christian injunction is to love the sinner but hate the sin.

My question: Is “Love the sinner, hate the sin” based on solid theology? Is that what the Bible teaches us? I ask because I’ve seen it more than a few times, and without exception it comes across with all the love of a knuckle sandwich. Without exception emphasis is placed on the hating part, usually followed by the “I have gay friends” assurance.

It’s no wonder I’ve heard it so much; a quick Google search for “hate the sin” comes up with 125,000 results, but if you filter out the references to homosexuality, the number drops down to 67,200.

Digest that for a minute. Nearly half the time this philosophy is mentioned, it’s in a conversation about homosexuality. Not divorce or alcoholism or gluttony or gossip. Not extra-marital sex. (I couldn’t figure out a test for that one.) In other words, not the sins that most people deal with personally.

No, when people say “love the sinner, hate the sin” it’s usually about homosexuality, a ‘sin’ they don’t have a personal issue with. I see a correlation there, an emphasis on a perceived fault we can catch someone else in without worrying about being caught ourselves.

Am I wrong? Is “love the sinner, hate the sin” good solid theology or is it a tool used to effectively ignore overt Biblical admonitions to love others (neighbor, self, family, enemies) full stop?

The floor is open.

You know, I don’t like being angry. I don’t like spending time writing about gay rights issues. In a perfect world, this entire blog would be unnecessary. I’d much rather be finding screencaps for the Die Hard review I’m working on for my non-political blog.

That’s what I was doing a few minutes ago when word started making the rounds that Rick Warren has released a video to members of his church. In this video, Rick tells unadulterated lies about what he’s said about gay rights, specifically gay marriage in the last week. Check it out:

(I’m choosing to ignore the preliminary nonsense about “hurling bombs at people” and being anonymous and being rude. I’ve dealt with your kind before, Rick. Nonsense like that won’t get me to change the subject.)

At about 2:40, Rick says that he’s never equated “gay partnerships” with incest and pedophilia. He says, “I believe no such thing. I never have. You’ve never once heard me in thirty years talk that way about that.” But last week he said exactly that.

Just in case the video doesn’t work:

Rick Warren: But the issue to me is, I’m not opposed to that as much as I’m opposed to the redefinition of a 5,000-year definition of marriage. I’m opposed to having a brother and sister be together and call that marriage. I’m opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage. I’m opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

Steven Waldman: Do you think, though, that they are equivalent to having gays getting married?

Rick Warren: Oh I do.

Seriously, Rick. Does the ninth commandment mean nothing to you?

He goes on to backpedal about the beliefnet interview, but the truth is that Warren’s words, spoken when he didn’t think anybody was paying attention, have given him away. This isn’t even the first time he’s said something like that, just the most recent. (Well, the most recent until Friday’s interview with Ann Curry.)

Rick also goes on to repeat (again) the lie that “the definition of marriage has been universally accepted since the beginning of man”. I hate stating the obvious, but it would appear that I need to. On June 12, 1967, in response to Loving vs. Virginia, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that:

Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

This ruling redefined marriage for the federal government and effectively nullified anti-miscegenation laws in 17 states. It’s worth noting that the state government of South Carolina was the last to remove anti-miscegenation language from its constitution. It did so in 2000. So it hasn’t even been ten years since a state redefined marriage, even if we ignore gay marriage rights currently recognized in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

I want to make it perfectly clear that this debate is not about the religious definition of marriage. That’s a separate issue. I disagree with Rick Warren in that debate as well, but here we’re talking specifically about the civil definition of marriage only. That’s what Warren was discussing in the beliefnet interview, and since the Bill of Rights ensures the freedom of religion, religion is not a reasonable argument for denying what the US Supreme Court has identified as one of the ‘basic civil rights of man.’

There’s more, including a second video in which Warren calls people who’ve been speaking out about him hateful and evil (yes seriously). Honestly, I couldn’t get through it without retching so I’ll let others, like Good As You’s Jeremy Hooper, respond to that one. The video is below.

Finally, I return to the title of the post and the fact that the first video was filmed right after Rick Warren got done with a Christmas service. To quote Todd Flanders, “Lies make Baby Jesus cry.”

Why are you making Baby Jesus cry, Rick? Why?

(28 days, Mr. Obama.)

Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish reported this morning on Rick Warren’s Ex-Gay group. The following (excerpt only) was received from one of his readers.

Most people probably don’t know this, but Warren’s Saddleback Church has a Friday night program called Celebrate Recovery. On the whole the program is modeled after the twelve steps, albeit with an evangelical supplement to it. There are subgroups in the program that cater to men with “addictions” to pornography, recovery alcoholics, and women with codependency issues. There is also a group for those who struggle with “same sex attraction”, the discourse of which is directly borrowed from the ex-gay movement. I know this, of course, because I was involved with the group in Spring of 2007.

I looked up Celebrate Recovery (again with the acronyms!), and found that in fact the group is listed on Saddleback’s website as a Signature Ministry. Here’s a link and a screencap of the page in case they decide to delete it from their site. While they’ve done their best to scrub any reference to homosexuality (or as they call it, “Same Sex Attraction”) from the ministry’s main website, there are traces out there. That’s one of the problems with selling your hate far and wide; you can’t control what everybody does with it.

I found one trace at Jubilee Celebrate Recovery, an affiliate group in California. Here’s the page and another screencap, because I expect the post to be gone soon. Note that this is not the page linked to at the top. It’s a post from March 2, 2008 on the apparently defunct blog. “Same Sex Attraction” is listed (way down at the bottom) as a treatable condition along with Chemical Dependency, alcoholism, overeating, and others.

Same Sex Attraction

Is your relationship with God characterized by shame and guilt? Have you pulled away from healthy relationships because of homosexual issues? If you relate to these struggles, we welcome you to join us for hope and strength as we learn how to apply the 8 Recovery Principles to our lives.

But maybe that Jubilee group is just misusing Saddleback’s materials, you know? Could be, except for the group I found in Loveland, Colorado. Crossroads Church did me the great favor of putting the pamphlet for Celebrate Recovery’s Same Sex Attraction group online. Here’s a copy, supplied by the church in handy-dandy pdf format! I found the symptoms of Same Sex Attraction quite interesting. They include stereotypically closeted gay qualities such as:

• Has more opposite-sex friendships than same-sex friendships
• Is overly sensitive to criticisms
• Cannot take good-natured joking or kidding from other men
• Can only guess at what it means to be a “man”
• May have acted out sexually with other men
• Secretly craves healthy, affirming affection from other men but feels awkward accepting or expressing such affection
• Feels unsure of himself
• Plagued by self-doubt and regrets
• Is very sensitive

And that’s not even half of them. Folks, this is Ex-Gay 101. Don’t let the Hawaiian shirts and Krispy Kremes fool you; Jim Dobson’s got nothing on Rick Warren. They are peas in a pod. (A totally heterosexual pod, of course.)

President-elect Obama, there are 33 days left to keep this from becoming the first major blemish on your presidency. Supporting an ex-gay proponent is not acceptable. You cannot support them and expect LGBT people, many of whom bear the psychological and spiritual scars from their abuse by ex-gay groups, and expect us to support you. This is non-negotiable.

33 days.

Last week I finally got around to buying one of Andrew Peterson’s earlier albums. (He’s a singer/songwriter; I reviewed his most recent album this week at my other blog.) One of the songs stuck out at me for what should be an obvious reason, but as I’ve been reading the stuff about Rick Warren and his donuts, the second verse has been working away at me as well.

The song is called Come, Lord Jesus, and it’s from Peterson’s album Carried Away. This is just the first third. Buy the album for more.

Tonight in the line of the merchandise store
While they were packing up my bags
I saw the pictures of the prophets of the picket signs
Screaming “GOD HATES FAGS”

And it feels like the church isn’t anything more
Than the second coming of the Pharisees
Scrubbing each other till their tombs are white
They chisel epitaphs of piety

Oh, there’s a burning down inside of me
‘Cause the battle seems so lost
And it’s raging on so silently
We forget it’s being fought

So, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen

(By the way, I don’t know Andrew Peterson’s views on homosexuality. Other than this bit of lyric he’s stayed away from the issue, just as most Christian artists do.)

Here’s the problem: People outside the Christian Church think that Fred Phelps and Rick Warren are the Christian Church. To a certain extent they’re right, as much as I hate to admit it. There are a lot of outright bigots in the Church, and there are a lot of people either too selfish or too lazy or too fearful to stand against them. There’s a lot of hate thrown around in places that are meant to be havens of love.

But.

There are also good people. There are the people in various churches and various denominations who help me stack up sandbags against the flood of evil. There are leaders like Mel White, Irene Monroe, Geoff Farrow, and Gene Robinson, people whose boldness and, yes, bravery help strengthen the current generation and raise a new one less likely to use the words of love to create fear.

The battle isn’t lost. Sometimes it feels like that, and today is one of those times. But the night will end and we will advance in our quest. There will come a day when I and others like me will be able to walk into a church without wondering if we’d be allowed there if they knew we were gay. I was hoping it was coming soon but lately the road has started to look longer and longer.

One day.