For Obama to heal the damage caused by the choice of Warren he needs to come out for equal rights

Bjorn Against

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Thu Dec-18-08 11:02 PM
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For Obama to heal the damage caused by the choice of Warren he needs to come out for equal rights

By now it should be clear to everyone who is being honest with themselves; Obama just made an enormous political blunder in his attempts to reach out to the other side. By choosing Rick Warren to deliver the invocation on inauguration day Obama had hoped that he would unite us, but instead of uniting us he created an enormous divide. There is an enormous battle going on right now between those who outraged at the choice of Warren, and those who want to provide damage control for Obama. Now some people are trying to claim that this will help Obama reach out to the other side, but there is a problem in this theory in that the other side is pissed off as well. They don't like Obama, and they don't want Warren speaking at his event so many of them are going crazy about this. The choice of Warren has not united anyone, instead it has embroiled the entire inauguration in controversy.

Obama created an enormous mess for himself, and now he is trapped in what at first glance looks to be a lose lose situation. If Warren gives his prayer it is virtually certain that protests will break out in the middle of it, there will be enormous controversy, there will be all kinds of hateful things said, and there will be a lot of people in the GLBTI community that will feel very hurt. If Obama decides to remove Warren from the inauguration events however then you have another problem, the religious right will start to rally around Warren as a victim of “political correctness” and they will be motivated to push all kinds of new anti-gay propaganda. No matter what path Obama chooses to take in regards to dealing with Warren it is going to have serious consequences, it will harm Obama politically and it will harm the GLBTI community in even more serious ways.

There is now really only one thing Obama can do to mend fences with the gay community I believe, he needs to come out forcefully in favor of gay rights. When I say he needs to come out forcefully I am not just saying that he should just give a nice sounding speech and be done with it, he needs to actually push for legislation that would provide equal rights to everyone regardless of sexual orientation. Right now the gay rights movement is stronger and more vocal than ever before, since California passed Proposition 8 there have been large protests all across the nation. There have been many emotional stories from the victims of Proposition 8, and Obama needs to listen to those victims. After he listens to those voices he needs to come out and admit he was wrong on the issue of gay marriage, and he needs to come out in favor of full marriage equality. Yes it will take some political capital, and it will be a tough battle for him to fight. If he wins however he will not only have mended fences with the gay community, but he will become one of their great heroes. Once gay marriage is legal the public will adapt to it just as they adapted to interracial marriage. Interracial marriage was extremely controversial until after it was legalized, today there are very few people who would publicly admit to believing that interracial marriage should be banned. Public attitudes on interracial marriage changed very quickly after it was legalized, and the same thing would happen if gay marriage was legalized. It may be a tough battle for Obama to fight, but I have no doubt that if he does fight he could win this battle and not only heal the rift he has created but more importantly he would finally bring equality to a group of people who have never been able to know what it is like to have the same rights as everyone else.

At this point it does not really matter too much to me whether Warren speaks at the inauguration or not, by choosing Warren in the first place the damage has already been done. I would like to see Warren kicked to the curb, but I would not like to hear all the hateful and bigoted things that would be screamed over the airwaves in the controversy that would most certainly erupt if he were kicked to the curb. What I would actually most like to see happen is for Obama to allow Warren to deliver the invocation, and then while Warren stands on stage during the inaugural address Obama can announce that he will support full marriage equality for gay couples. I know that the people in Washington would view such a move as way too risky, and for that reason it probably won't happen like that, but that is the way it should happen.

I know that I can sit and write all this advice to Obama, but the truth is that he is not going to listen to me because I am just one person who is not all that influential by myself. I know I have a lot of allies in this however, and I believe that if enough people were to look beyond Warren in the letters that they are flooding Change.gov with and tell Obama what they really think he needs to do to help heal the division he has caused, maybe, just maybe he would listen. While Obama may not be saying it publicly he knows he screwed up here, and I am sure that he really wants to heal things he just doesn't know how to do it. This is our opportunity to tell him how to do it.