"[Homosexuals] want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers." – Pat Robertson
And let’s not forget the most recent quote from Pastor Rick Warren. This phrase was uttered as a defense of his attitude towards gays and lesbians.
Just because I like pizza it doesn’t mean I should marry it…Biologically, I am predisposed to enjoy the immaculate melding of mozzarella cheese, red sauce and thick crust baked to tasty perfection.
But that doesn’t mean I should enter into a lifelong commitment with Sicilian or plain, nor bed it down, nor bring children into the world and have them have to explain to their classmates why their mom’s crust is not a crisp as it once was. Does any child deserve to have their friends tossing Monday 2 for 1 coupons in his face? Not in my world they don’t. Yet, to say that I am against pizza-eaters or gays is absurd. Our Saddleback Church offer more weight-watchers meetings to overeaters than any other evangelical megachurch on the west coast.
Religion appears to be focused right now on fighting against homosexuality and preserving the sanctity of marriage, but let’s not forget that these religious evangelicals are behind anti-women and anti-choice campaigns that concern abortion, stem cell research, and euthanasia.
To Barack Obama and others who seek to make people “okay” with Obama’s decision, you may not understand what it is like to be considered less than human. You may not know what it’s like to be compared to, well, now one can say pizza.
Just because one may think Warren is receiving an equal amount of excoriation for agreeing to participate in Obama’s Inauguration does not mean that all is okay. What Obama is doing involves inviting a bigot to be part of a historic moment in this country’s nation. It sends a message that his views and opinions are reasonable or worth considering.
Obama’s decision helps Rick Warren further reinvent the evangelical movement in America, strengthens it, and makes the movement capable of making an impact in this so-called new era of hope and change.
To gays and lesbians and fair-minded people in this country, such an invitation against civil rights is clearly tone-deaf. And, to all those willing to suggest gays and lesbians and fair-minded people should lay off and calm down so a moment in history or a chance at hope and change can be preserved, I say, again, you don’t know what it’s like to be considered less than human or be compared to pizza.
And I close by saying, would you have told African-Americans or women to stop fighting for rights? No, and gays and lesbians should not and will not stop fighting until they get the rights they deserve.
