A Gchat conversation I just had with a fellow Whyrooter regarding Obama's choice of Rick Warren to bless his inauguration—
Nathan: i guess our prompt was pretty timely :) what with the rick warren invocation announcement me: yeah no kidding seriously. :) ughh why why why why an anti choice anti gay preacher Nathan: i don't know10:44 AM rick warren encapsulates some of the deepest contradictions of evangelicals involved in some progressive movement progressive causes* because he's really on board with international development and economic justice but he's also virulently anti-gay and anti-choice10:45 AM me: exactly could he not find a single preacher whos progressive both socially and politically?? Nathan: oh i'm sure he could have he's trying to send some sort of message by picking this guy me: what message is that10:46 AM Nathan: no clue i don't know that he can reach across the aisle and pick allies strategically most likely me: he could strategically pick an ally who doesn't offend women and gays how about that?10:47 AM Nathan: i don't know he's really pushing things me: "pushing things" what the hell does that mean?10:48 AM Nathan: he's pushing the comfort level of lefties me: he has strategically pushed me away! Nathan: exactly haha i think he's trying to confound expectations me: and this is good? to embrace backwards thinking people and push progressives away? Nathan: increase comfort levels on the right when you're about to shove through the most liberal agenda in America's history? probably10:49 AM me: hm. that's an interesting theory. Nathan: i mean, if he's doing all this shit and doesn't: get the troops out of Iraq quickly institute a cap and trade program10:50 AM universal healthcare and a huge economic stimulus then he's just shitting on the left to no apparent purpose me: well that remains to be seen i suppose Nathan: he's actually raising the stakes for the left as if they could get higher me: no kidding Nathan: i mean, these are already things everyone wants10:51 AM but now it's like, you better deliver or you're a traitor i dunno it will be interesting to compare his first term to jimmy carter's who was seen as ideological at the expense of being effectual or effective anyway i have to go board a plane10:52 AM ttyl me: listen to this though http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2008/12/18/spaulding/index.html10:53 AM bye bye fly safe.
-- Daniela Perdomo
I was raised an agnostic, have embraced atheism, and am pretty much entirely surrounded by other rejecters of religion. Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign I was awed—and not in a comfortable sense—by the way every candidate professed his or her adoration of Jesus Christ the Lord. Surely, I thought, they are merely being politically expedient. (This political expediency thesis makes it easier for me to understand how a man of Obama's intellect could say he believes in God despite being raised in a decidedly non-religious home and having remained non-religious until early adulthood.)
Despite the secular bubbles I travel in, I am not delusional about the existence of the god delusion in the United States. In this country—the most religious developed nation in the world —our dollar bills say it all: "In God We Trust."
I have no problem with others believing in Jesus, Allah, Xenu, Haley's Comet, what-have-you. I understand that religion is as old as mankind and even though I am certain we are trending toward secularization in the long-run, the United States is not there yet. If religion gets you through the night, the day, the life, so long as you don't impose it on me and the laws that govern my citizen life, then I absolutely respect your free-will choice to practice it just as I hope you respect my free-will choice to abstain from it.
All this meandering merely to say that if evangelicals and other believers want to work with progressives on issues ordinarily unassociated with the religious right, that's wonderful. Wonderful, indeed. But I don't believe that in order to attract their numbers, progressives have to pander to their religious beliefs. While it may be politically expedient in the short-term, it is neither politically nor morally expedient in the long-term to cater to fundamentalists' religious tenets, particularly not when those same beliefs have been often used to justify the stripping of others' rights.
If evangelicals are moving in our direction, it's because progressivism is inclusive where fundamentalism is exclusive. It would be wrong to exclude religious people from the progressive game but it also would be wrong to play by fundamentalism's failed rules and let religion referee.
-- Daniela Perdomo
I readily admit it: I don't know how to do it. Perhaps it's because I live four blocks from The Gayest Place on Earth; or because I went to a top 20 gay-friendly college; or because homosexuality—like everything pertaining to sex—was explained to me early on in purely biological (and rational) terms by my parents. No matter the reason, the fact of the matter is that I don't understand how to reason with people who vote against granting equal marriage rights to all citizens on moral grounds.
I can rationalize the legal reasons for why these bans may have passed. (For example: Why should government involve itself in "marriage," an institution born of religion? Marry no one in City Hall—grant only civil partnerships!) So that's no problem. My issue is I don't know how, or even whether it's possible, to argue with someone who holds such extreme moral views about homosexuality. I can say the same thing, really, for someone who believes a zygote to be a human being; or someone who literally interprets the Beatitudes.
It's one thing to dismiss extreme moral views as the result of ignorance, it's another to try to grapple with an otherwise well-informed individual who holds these sorts of views. I read, recently, a blog post by a smart, college-educated girl who went to grade school with me. A week before Election Day, in a blog post titled "What I Stand For," she wrote—
"I believe that legal marriage should only be between a man and a woman. I do not believe it discriminates against homosexual people to defend that time-honored definition. I do not dislike homosexuals; I will not stop being any of their friends. I will not call them names; I will not belittle them. But I will do all that I can to stop them and those who are for it from changing the definition of marriage that is the very basis of society and everything I believe in. A person does not have the right to marry anyone he or she wishes to. We do not have the right to choose anything or anyone. Men cannot marry men. Women cannot marry women. People cannot marry animals. A 40 year-old cannot marry a 12 year-old. A man cannot marry more than one woman, and a woman cannot marry more than one man. Marriage is a privilege, not a right. It is a word with a definition that I do not want to have changed."
The equating of consensual, mature, homosexual love to pedophilia, polygamy, and bestiality! The irrational fear that another person's marriage defines your own! I'm at a loss.
Some have asked me why I trouble with trying to decipher such views, and the reason is that I have been trying to decide whether it's of any use to even try to argue with such people, so as to try to get them to vote differently. Perhaps we ought to explain to them that a gay marriage ban is not really a ban on gay marriage, it's a rejection of marriage equality and a dismissal of human rights.
Over the past few days, I've decided that I will not try to argue with these people. Fortunately for all those who embrace rational thinking and who not only laud but actually enshrine equality, the arc of history and progress is bending in the right direction. The younger generation—my generation!—is overwhelmingly, by 2 to 1, for marriage equality. Every day, more people who grew up ignorant of or prejudiced towards homosexuality are turning around and either discarding those views, or simply acknowledging that this is a human rights issue. While this year California, Arkansas, and Florida did not move forward with the tide of progress, they will. Soon.
Top left: My Election Day voting stickers, unintentionally placed next to a photobooth reel depicting a happy time with friends, one of whom is a queer activist; Directly above: My "No" on Prop 8 vote.
-- Daniela Perdomo
RSS Feed