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Big Tent Revival

By Alec Harrington

President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation is an adroit move, that could be sincere, cynical or both. It could be a genuine attempt to reach out to evangelicals. While evangelicals will never become for the Democrats the dependable voting block they have been for Republicans, this could be an attempt by Obama to continue to siphon away some of those votes. If it is an opportunistic ploy, he is banking on the probability that gay rights activists and other liberals will not desert him over this (and even if we are contemplating it, it is not a concern of his this far from the next election). If this move is a genuine attempt at reaching out, I find it heartening. If it is cynical politicking, I find it even more heartening.

That effective politicians are tough and play dirty is almost too obvious a fact to bother mentioning. That Obama ran a very disciplined campaign and has been running a smooth and impressive transition along with the Warren selection showing that he is cynical enough to take some of his constituents for granted offers hope that he is smart enough and hardened enough to avoid the missteps of the early Clinton administration. We will see whether he carries his pragmatism to the Clintonian extremes of selling out his own beliefs and co-opting Republican positions (although, at the moment, co-opting Republican positions would not be the smart, tough-minded strategy).

In addition to admiring what I think is Obama’s political deftness, I genuinely believe in reaching out to people with whom I disagree. No one has a monopoly on truth, and decent, ethical, loving people can come to conclusions with which I disagree. I am not religious; I do not believe a fetus is a human being in the same way a baby is. Yet I understand that if you do believe that, you are morally obligated to try to prevent abortions and, yes, make them illegal, just as infanticide is illegal.

Gay rights is a more complicated issue because I believe that sexual orientation is a part of the essence of a person and, whether it is a genetic characteristic or an environmentally developed one, at some point (whether at conception or in childhood) it becomes immutable. I am homosexual. Because sexuality is part of a person’s very being, it is hard not to see opposition to gay rights as discriminatory. However, I believe that it is possible for religious people to find homosexual behavior immoral without being prejudiced against people with homosexual orientations. Yes, to ask someone to refrain from sexual activity is asking him/her repress an urge as primal as hunger and to deny him/herself a very important type of passionate love relationship. It may well be that it is unfair and unreasonable to ask someone to do that.

If Christians (evangelical and otherwise) are taking their opposition to homosexual behavior from the Old Testament, it is legitimate to question why they are adhering to some Old Testament proscriptions and not others. I am not enough of biblical scholar to know whether they are being selective in what they take from Paul’s epistles.

I do object to those religious people (primarily protestant evangelicals) who have made opposition to gay rights an issue of greater importance than fighting poverty, disease and the destruction of the environment. While, if you believe a fetus is a human being, abortion is a crime with an innocent victim, if you believe that homosexuals are going to hell, the victims are not innocent, they have made a choice – I do not see why fighting a sin without innocent victims is such a high priority. However, Rick Warren is not one of these Christian conservatives. He does devote effort to issues of poverty, disease, and the environment, and in an op-ed article opposing Obama’s decision, New York Times columnist Frank Rich admitted, “Warren is not obsessed with homosexuality and abortion.”

If we civil libertarians are going to ask people to be tolerant of people (like me) who engage in behavior they find sinful, we must be tolerant of religious beliefs we find intolerant.

Some argue that Obama could reach out to Warren and other multi-issue (as opposed to sex-obsessed) evangelicals without giving Warren such a prominent role in the inauguration. I hold that the grandeur of Obama’s gesture is precisely what makes it effective. It sends a clear message to Warren’s constituency that Obama does not demonize them nor does Warren demonize Obama and the Democrats. This creates an opening for liberals and multi-issue evangelicals to work together toward the goals we share: reductions of poverty and disease and the salvation of the environment.

In my fantasy of an inclusive inaugural Bishop Gene Robinson would be delivering the benediction. But, given the historic significance of Obama’s election, his selection of SCLC co-founder Reverend Joseph Lowery is an extremely appropriate choice. I hope President Obama has the opportunity to invite Bishop Robinson to participate in the 2013 inauguration.*

* Editor's Note: Alec Harrington submitted this piece a few days before the President-elect invited Bishop Robinson to participate in the 2009 inauguration. It seemed appropriate to keep the original piece intact in tribute to the author's foresight.

From January, 2009

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