Number one, if Pastor Warren "takes you out," he is required by tradition to show up at your dad's house in a freshly washed car, his palms sweaty, his stomach full of butterflies, and must suffer an eyeballing by your dad while you finish getting ready. Pastor Warren may take you to dinner and a movie, and then must drive you directly back home with no fooling around.

I think you're more worried about Pastor Warren murdering you directly or through his brainwashed legions. Polonium might be involved, or a strong-arm mugging gone bad. In any event, unless Pastor Warren is taking you out on a date in high school, it's time and past time to round-file the Bushian "take out" rubbish, isn't it?

I'm only joking to hold back the dry heaves. If Socks the Cat weren't dying of cancer, Obama would have a centrist, non-partisan, Clinton leftover White House pet all lined up, and never mind a dog for the girls. The entire world economy is about to climb up its own anus and disappear, and the Single-Issue Voters Who Dare Not Speak Their Name have elevated this dork, Warren, to national prominence because he calls people icky names, or doesn't, or once did, depending on the phase of the moon.

I suppose that settles the question once and for all, what's really important. Indictment for mass murder and war crimes is still off the table, tossing a pious quisling out on his ass to die of exposure is (oh, I say, what what) rather too impolite by half, but the choice of God-botherer at the flag-waving ceremony, ah, there the downtrodden masses still have a chance to express impotent dissatisfaction. Go get 'em, tiger.

I'm just pointing out in a snarky way that Rick Warren is an incoherent twerp who, underneath his freshly painted exterior of civility preaches a gospel of hate.

Almost more than the automatic deference to hate expressed and effected (the restrictive CA prop) by "religious groups," I'm bothered by the arrogance of leadership represented by some of the blogs on the left. I'm specifically thinking of John Aravosis and his AMERICAblog which aggressively supported Obama in spite of the obvious signs that he wasn't the ideal personification of "hope" that he was projecting in almost messianic tones. Instead he was and is a cold, calculating, and triangulating politician, ready to use and sell out whatever groups, principles and ideals he claimed to cherish whenever he saw doing so as serving his personal ambitions. A typical politician in other words, very much on the order of those that use religious tones to get elected.

I'm glad that Aravosis has gone into his characteristic full "pedal to the metal" attack mode against the support Obama is giving to a hateful "religious leader." If anything for me it points out the need to change the rules that allow these religious groups to be free of criticism (due to their "personal relationship with god") and tax exempt, thereby having an enormous advantage financially. Their ability to claim some higher, godly plane, in their views is undeserved. We're seeing them use that right now with all the claims that gay rights defenders are against god rather than for "man" and against evil policies and behavior. The "religious" are allowed to claim that damning gays and gay rights is god's will (the little "g" is intentional in that I don't view any of these activities as in any way related to anything worthy of unquestioned reverence). But it's only their particular god and their particular filtering of god that's given the reverence to the detriment of others and other religions, religious views and groups. Religions that believe in equal rights for all are not to be considered, even condemned, which would appear to be government dictating the practices of particular religions at the expense of others. Something that had always been considered unAmerican.

The signs that Obama was not a supporter of gays and gay rights were obvious, at least to me. Yet Aravosis would use the same forceful arrogant disdain towards anyone that pointed out these signs to him. I can see some need for arrogant tendencies in that the need to be driven towards achieving a goal often requires a mind set that diminishes contrary views. But then accept the error of judgment and take some blame. Aravosis is as responsible for Obama's support of anti-gay policies as much as anyone, if not more so considering his leadership on gay issues. Much of the logic Aravosis is projecting right now regarding the support for hate and undemocratic (what we used to call unAmerican) laws and policies that Obama's honoring of Warren represents applies to Aravosis himself in his blind support for Obama. Because of that many saw Obama as the best choice, just as many now will see the policies projected by Warren as acceptable and worthy of consideration and status as the law of the land.

I've seen this arrogance of leadership in MMZ at DailyKos, where contrary "liberal" views are dismissed and denigrated to the point of driving out supporters and giving us "fightin' Dems" Bush dogs. Leading takes responsibility, not arrogance and it's time to recognize that some of the leaders of the left blogs don't accept responsibility for their arrogance and their errors and aren't worthy of blind deference, just as Warren isn't worthy of any respect and deference not only despite his claim to godliness but because of it.

Consider -

Obama Snub still rankles Gavin Newsom
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lane-hudson/obama-snub-still-rankles-_b_85077.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/02/05/BAM5US1B5.DTL&type=printable

Obama's Somewhat Secret Meeting With Evangelical Pastors.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06&year=2008&base_name=hugs_jesus_secret_meetings_and

The sellout?

You are sounding like the other side of the hate coin. It's still hate even if you're a liberal. So please, chill out about the lame accusation that conservatives like Warren want "evildoers" to die. It's simply not true. Warren is a mainstream pastor. His mainstream audience is not dominated by psychopaths. Death to "evildoers" is more radical and fringe territory you might find on a compound in a remote part of Utah. Those misguided few exist in all religions/world views. Most of them unfortunately do want to change behavior so that it pleases their god and an ensuing conflict of interest occurs. However, if you actually listen to Warren(I highly suspect you haven't), he makes the case on multiple accounts that he is not against equal rights. Because homosexuality is so sensitive an issue, lets use a metaphor. He's against the label of soup being put on something other than soup. You can have your taco salads and hot dog stews with all the same nourishing benefits that come with soup. Just don't call it soup. That's a far cry from wanting death to "evildoers". BTW, evil and homosexuality are not in the vicinity of each other even by conservative evangelical standards. So please knock off the hate mongering. You could do yourself some good by practicing active listening to the folks you deride. You are stuck in debate mode kind of listening so you have a nasty confirmation bias obscuring your view of the truth. I'm a proud liberal and you are making the rest of us look bad.

that the Hannity has never read the Old Testament. I'm an atheist and I had read the Bible twice from cover to cover by the time I was 20, and once again in my thirties. Oh well, I guess you don't have to know anything to have an opinion on everything. Sigh...

... P.E.A.C.E. award that Rick Warren recently bestowed upon George Bush? Has Bush actually performed a good deed via increased funding to combat AIDS? Or has this extra $$ gone to the coffers of our very own Drug Companies much like Medicare drug coverage?

And, Thanks! JB

how dare they repeat what I say! They must be suffering from "Christophobia(or could it be because he is a bigot?), freedom of speech and opinion I guess only applies to him LOL Now wouldn't it be a hoot if he turns out to be another Haggard :D

The U.S. can't seem to live without a semi-official National Minister. It might be a Fulton J. Sheen or Norman Vincent Peale, though for the most part presidents in the past 50 years have turned to Billy Graham to act as both private counselor and public High Priest (if you were a Democrat you could also get absolution from Rev. Jesse Jackson). Now that Graham is too old for the job the search is on.

Rick Warren seems desperate for the position. Unfortunately, fundamentalists and evangelicals do have a history of intolerance, bigotry, and fear-mongering, and things that are said in the privacy of their sanctuaries look too nasty to the general public when one of these reverends wants to advance up the national ladder. Suddenly they have to be more temperate and respectable for a larger audience, so past statements are outright denied or softened with confusing counter-rhetoric. Rick Warren is now busy scrubbing his website of all the intolerant things he has said about gays. Sure, it will cost him some money in the short run, since gay bashing is so lucrative for these churches, but there is a lot more to be made in the long run by being America's Pastor. Sarah Palin did the exact same thing as a VP candidate, suddenly disavowing some of the bigoted things she had said in the privacy of her church.

Now in some places, like the Catholic Church, this process takes centuries. This week the Pope has declared Galileo a hero of the church for his ability to reconcile faith with science. At long last the Catholic Church has come to accept the Renaissance advances in science, even though advances in humanism (such as occurred during the Enlightenment) are still suspect. Perhaps around 2510 some Pope will accept gay people as members of the human race, and homosexuality will no longer be an "intrinsic disorder".

We'll never be able to tell whether Rick Warren is in favor of assassinating Ahmadinejad, or whether he wants to "take anyone out." He'll waffle over his true intentions, claiming he was misquoted or misunderstood. As America's Pastor, he has to give himself theological room to satisfy all sorts of constituencies. All national pastors do this - look at the pronouncements of Khamenei, or Khomeini before him, or al-Sistani, or Rowen Williams, who speak cryptically. The job requires a Delphic quality of utterance.

Since Obama has anointed Warren as U.S. High Priest, we can expect Warren to moderate his language a bit, whatever his personal views. Those he can still present in private when he has prayer meetings with the president. After all, Billy Graham had a great time bashing the Jews whenever he sat down with Nixon - he just didn't know he was being taped.