Does anyone from the left remember what a leader is?

It was refreshing to stop hearing everything the democrats are against and hear some interesting talk on an issue. Some from the left wonder why Republicans are in power and all you have to do is look at the void in leadership at the top. Dean? Polosi? Literally laughable. Out of touch at best.

It is tough to be a democrat these days but I liked hearing a fresh take from Obama. There is no reason to cast aside all people of faith in a bad knee jerk move because of bad experiences with evangelicals.

I mean we could cast them aside and sit back while we watch another Republican in office for another 4 years.

If you hang out on sites like DKos, you’ll find folks rife with righteous indignation over the ability to out-centrist one another and reach out to the opposition. I think this is, in principle, a healthy stance to take. The process of such an outreach does not have to involve a betrayal of one’s values (nor should it) but rather a sincere attempt to acknowledge the worth of others’ opinions and to frame the issues in such a way that we can work towards conversion or consensus.

Exactly how did Obama differ from this platform?

Why is the left simply repeating the meme that all discussions of religion definitively belong to Republicans?

If you want to be a partisan, bully for you. If you want to reach out and unite people, even better. But if you abandon the very people who are trying to make inroads and unite the country, the only lesson you are teaching politicians is to ignore your values because they will never be able to please you. Bloggers are making strident inroads in political clout, but if we want to maintain relevance then we can’t behave like a bunch of petulant children who stomp our feet and moan whenever we are actually getting exactly what we asked for.

The Hindsight Factor
_)( _)( _) (_)( _) (_ )(_ )( _)(

Amen brother, amen!

I think for the Democratic Party to survive, it is going to have to motivate the progressive faithful. The progressive faithfuls aren’t motivated to vote like the evangelicals. Add the progressive faithfuls to the anti-war people, the anti-Bush people, people fed up with the handling of the economy, gas prices or border issues and you might have enough to win some elections.

There are people of faith on the Left who are tolerant and don’t believe that being gay is a sin, but there are also a great many liberals who hold faith and also don’t believe in gay rights. Being on the Left isn’t an indicator of an automatic ally for our community, unfortunately.

I don’t think there is any way the Democrats could court fundamentalists or evangelicals. They are opposed on too many issues. Women’s rights, immigrants rights, gay rights, big government (okay maybe that one’s now suspect), religion vs. science in schools, etc.

Courting the faithful is all fine and good for the Dems, it’s actually necessary for their survival, but for our community? The choices are the same they’ve ever been. The party that actively works against us, or the party that does nothing.

For example, if you look at social issues, Blacks & Hispanics poll closer with Republicans than White Democrats. So why do Blacks vote Republican? Because the GOP has embraced the Southern Bigots, the confederate flag, affirmative action, Immigration Wall and other positions is saying “F*ck You.” And the same should happen with the GOP is in a tough spot, if they try to court the Blacks and Hispanics, they will start losing the bigot vote.

The Democrats are in a much better position, treat the evangelicals with respect, go on the offensive for one or two things. Allow after-school Bible clubs and religious organizations. Start pushing for a morality class in schools where Humanist, Judeo-Christian and Eastern Morality is studied and compared.

[Gay] civil and human rights must also be honored, respected, and defended for a society to be good and healthy. It is a question of both justice and compassion. To be both pro-family and pro-gay and lesbian civil rights could open up some common ground that might take us forward.

There is a middle way. We can make sure that long-term gay and lesbian partnerships are afforded legitimate legal protections in a pluralistic society without changing our long-standing and deeply rooted concept of marriage as being between a man and a woman. That should continue to be the theology of the church and the way our society best orders itself.

But do we really want to deny a gay person’s right to be at their loved one’s deathbed in a hospital with “family restrictions”? Do we also want to deny that person a voice in the medical treatment of his or her partner? And do we really want all the worldly possessions of a deceased gay person to revert to the family who rejected them 30 years ago, instead of going to their partner of the last 20 years? There are fundamental issues of justice and fairness here that can be resolved without a paradigm shift in our basic definition of marriage.

He may wrongly believe that a society can be just without equal marriage, but he rightly understands that a society cannot be “good and healthy” without recognition of the fundamental humanity of gay people is not “honored, respected, and defended.”

And far from avoiding the topic of gay equality, Sojourners often addresses it, both directly and indirectly, and it never reads as anything less than welcoming of gay people. (When Michael Stipe came out, for example, the coverage in the music section was not, “What about the children!” but rather, “Why aren’t more musicians out, and what we do to change that?”) It’s not that Sojourners (or Wallis) doesn’t believe that these issues are worthy of discussion, or that they are less important than other issues, but that there are other issues, and that they have moral dimensions as well - issues like illegal immigration, which Sojourners coved most recently (”Welcome the Stranger,” they say.)

That leaves what? Music memes and cat pictures? Because I’m not sure how I’m supposed to post anything with “sincerity” without occasionally getting riled up. And I’m not sure how not to get riled up about people who use their faith to discriminate and codify discrimination.

Frankly, I don’t care how people “live their lives” or what they believe. They can believe whatever they want. What I care about his how my family and I, and others like us are treated.

And, no, I don’t expect devout christians or fundie to care what I think, or whether I live or die for that matter. But when a party that supposedly supports equality starts making noise about courting some of those very people, how am I not supposed to make noise about that?

Better yet, I’ll just ask this question. What would you like to hear? What would you have me say?

Many liberal and progressive Christians have aligned themselves with the gays, and, that issue is at the heart of the huge controversy that is happening right now within the Episcopal and Anglican Churches. There is no reason why the Dems who are faithful should not use that to their advantage. I’m gay, I’m black, I’m also a progressive Christian and smart enough to realize that if the Dems hope to win in 2006 and 2008, they will have to court the centrist vote, just like Clinton did who was elected and re-elected on a centrist platform. Gary has a valid point: liberals need to be more inclusive. It’s a reverse elitism that has achieved nothing.

FYI, Obama attends Trinity Unity Church of Christ … a black, megachurch that is pro-gay. He is not a TD Jakes. But as a rhetorical question, if you abandoned Christianity, do you really think the fundies or devout black church folk will really care about your opinions about how they should lead their lives? If you want to talk to church folk, or persuade some moderates, or keep evangelicals at bay, it certainly helps to have a church background.

I keep coming back to this website, admiring its sincerity. But you get so riled up over anything that has to do with other black people, black gays or religion, its a huge turn-off and smacks of self-hating.

Sen. Barack Obama chastised fellow Democrats on Wednesday for failing to "acknowledge the power

god, religion, all that jazz? Just a genetically pre-determined itch. There’s so much evidence for the truth of that, that it hardly seems worth arguing about.

Religion…belief in the supernatural. All that jazz. It got us where we are. And it will destroy us. Just one more adaptation gone bad. Hoist on our own petard, you might say.

Go read some Reg Morrison, or Richard Dawkins. Barak should do the same. Religion is nothing but trouble. Always has been, always will be.

Truth is, *belief* is nothing but trouble. Belief is a kind of false epistomology. Belief means nothing. You believe in Jesus. I believe in candy-striped gremlins covered in green fur. How is your belief one iota more valid than mine? And don’t give me any shit about the Bible. It’s an interesting book, but it’s no more *fact* than the Harry Potter books…maybe less so, when all is said.

Belief is useless. Thought, and hard fact, provable by repeatable experimentation…that is worth more than any and all belief.

Belief is the greatest scourge of humankind. We’d be far better off without it. But, of course, our DNA couldn’t possibly allow that. We are shackled to our DNA now and forever. If we could simply realize it, and change our behavior by using our nice big forebrains, what a lovely world it would be…without god, without religion. A lovely world. Look at the horror of this world. Religion, belief, made it ALL.