Daily Kos: Hateful Evangelicals v. Rick Warren and Enter Obama

You might want to go here before reading my comments.

As pointed out by kos, Rick Warren is anti-gay in every sense of the word. In fact, Warren, a Baptist, sided with Archbishop Orombi (Uganda) in his boycott of Lambeth and had this to say about the Church of England and gays:

"The Church of England is wrong and I support the Church of Uganda(CoU) on the boycott,"Dr Warren said on Thursday shortly after arriving in Uganda.

Dr Warren said that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. "We shall not tolerate this aspect at all," Dr Warren said.

For those not familiar with Archbishop Orombi, he and others from "Global South", including the fiery Archbishop Akinola (Nigeria), have variously said they either have no gay people in their churches or countries, or that gays are anything from satanic and less than animals.

Yes, these are the same folks that Rick Warren has associated himself with.

While hunger and poverty are in excess in his continent's countries, including his Uganda, Orombi returned funds from American Anglican agencies sent to help in the Aid work in Uganda after openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson was consecrated in 2003. Apparently, Orombi would prefer his people remain in poverty and hunger than take from Americans in The Episcopal Church moneys to help. Thus the rise of Rick Warren whose money is apparently more effective and clean when it comes to providing potable water and food for people who have neither.

On August 16, Rick Warren's megachurch, Saddleback Community Church, will be holding a forum for both Barack Obama and John McCain, both of whom will be speaking, though not debating. Yeah, it's in my neck of the woods, but I don't know if I will go. I have little stomach for this kind of forum, especially at this particular venue given Warren's verbal hate of lgbt people and his alignment with forces in Africa that openly support penal action (jailing) and fail to criticize or advocate against such penal actions and violence against same.

Interestingly, given Warren's relationship to Orombi and Orombi's statements about Barack Obama, I cannot understand why Obama would even desire to go to this forum and in doing so he clearly does two interesting things:

1. Obama infuriates the evangelical right that also does not like Warren (but heck, Obama isn't going to win those votes anyway). Headlines, though, are read and not articles, so expect more negative press.

2. Obama, despite his statements in support of gay rights, though not same gender marriage (so, gee, you mean some lesser "equal rights" Obama?) might want to read the California Supreme Court decision allowing same gender marriage before you try to pose as a supporter of "equal rights" for lgbt folks. By the way, Obama, Prop 8 in CA may easily go down to defeat, so head's up. More bad press.

Obama is associating himself, one step removed, with an Anglican who supports jail and persecution of lgbt people in Uganda. Hey, Warren and Orombi are buds! You know--the birds of a feather thing. Enter Obama. Gee, group hug?

Believe me, Obama's visit will backfire and at the very least, Obama will get no benefit for his trouble. He will, however, get a lot of negative press and scalding from the extremely wacky editorial board of the libertarian Orange County Register (which has never met a democrat they liked). It is an incredibly inane move by the Obama camp and, for some of us in Orange County carefully watching Obama, it reeks of hypocrisy.

UPDATE: Well, I won't be attending... LOOK at these alleged entry prices! Yikes! There will be an anti-war protest somewhere nearby I understand.