Factonista » Proposition 8

Triangulation FTL: Right Wing Pastor Rick Warren to Lead Invocation

Robin Zhang — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 08:05:45 +0000

No, not ‘faster than light’, but rather ‘for the lose’. And while I will continue to support him (he hasn’t actually made any policy proposals yet), this is perhaps the worst political calculation of Barack Obama since the FISA vote, and doomed to fail as I will explain below.

I admit that I was intially and naively impressed with Rick Warren, believing that he was some sort of moderate who was trying to shift the focus of evangelicals away from the culture wars and towards more universal goals such as climate change and alleviating poverty. But after looking more closely at Warren’s ideology and the political initiatives he supports (most recently Prop 8), I have to conclude that Warren is little better than the Falwells and Robertsons – only with a much better PR machine to make him look like a moderate and much less ‘angry’. The video below pretty much sums everything up:

[youtube]Xz4O8j8MIhs[/youtube]

It’s pretty clear what Barack Obama is doing; evangelicals make up about 25% of the country (and supported McCain overwhelmingly), while gay people make up less than 10% (and supported Obama overwhelmingly). Thus it would make sense to try to gain votes with a larger section of the electorate… but then you would have to take into account Warren’s likening of abortion to the holocaust and being against stem cell research (60% of the country considers themselves ‘pro-choice’ and only 18% of the country believes that abortion right should be banned under all circumstances) and his right-wing foreign policy views. All three of these issues are central to the voting patterns of right-wing evangelicals, who are also notorious for being inflexible and exceedingly intolerant of dissenting opinions.

This is not even taking into account that we are dealing with a fundamental human rights issue (that Mr. Obama should be especially sensitive to, being an African-American…) and that if this were happening 40 years ago, Pastor Warren would be arguing for the separation of races based on biblical infallibility. If I were to try to woo the evangelical vote – not that I would even have to at this point after getting 7.5% more of the popular vote than John McCain and having a 68% popularity rating – I would get liberal evangelical Jim Wallis or former NAE president Richard Cizik to do the invocation, not some pseudo-moderate wolf in sheep’s clothing. That, and I would wait for the younger generation – who are generally more tolerant of alternative lifestyles – to take over the electorate.

Another possibility is that this could be just some sort of ploy where Obama tries to look more moderate while adopting left-wing policies (a reverse Rick Warren?); George W. Bush after all had left-wing Rev. Louis Leon during his 2005 invocation despite tacking hard to the right. But either way, it’s a bad day for the transition.

Winning the Battle for Gay Rights

Guest Contributor — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:32:14 +0000

Article written for Edger by Jon Adams.

I’m late to the discussion over Proposition 8. I’ve been following the news, digesting the defeat, tempering my emotions, and articulating my thoughts. But as an ex-Mormon bisexual living in the heart of Mormondom (Utah), I feel compelled to break my peace and make a foray into the issue. So here it goes.

The LGBT community endured an emotional rollercoaster on Election Day. One moment, they were assured “Yes we can!” The next, with the passage of Proposition 8, they were told “Um, no you can’t.” They are still suffering from that whiplash.

Over the past week and a half, that pain has manifested itself as anger (and understandably so) toward those who supported Proposition 8—particularly the LDS Church.

The LDS Church has been quick to note that they were not alone in supporting Proposition 8—they were party to a coalition of hundreds of churches*. Point taken. There were admittedly many culprits: the majority of older voters and black voters, a dishonest YES campaign, an inept NO campaign—all these contributed to and share some blame for Proposition 8’s passage. But this ignores the fact that the LDS Church was undoubtedly the most influential backer of Proposition 8, donating $23 million dollars to the cause and demanding support of their church members.

Given the church’s extensive involvement in Proposition 8, it’s not at all surprising that there have been worldwide protests at their temples and church-houses. But Mormons have cried foul. “It is disturbing that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being singled out for speaking up as part of its democratic right in a free election,” wrote Kim Farah, the spokeswoman for the LDS Church and (incidentally) my neighbor.

“While those who disagree with our position on Proposition 8 have the right to make their feelings known, it is wrong to target the Church and its sacred places of worship for being part of the democratic process.”

Translation: We can get in your pants, but you can’t get in our face.

Did the LDS Church think it could help deprive people their marriage rights with immunity? Protests are the price the church paid to participate in our democratic process. The church didn’t have to stick its nose in Californian affairs. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

That said, I do have some reservations about the recent spate of protests. The LGBT community and its allies are upset, and I think it’s wholly appropriate for them to communicate the profound pain wrought by Proposition 8. But I fear that the protests will prove counterproductive—especially those protests targeting Mormon temples and church-houses. They play into Mormon prejudices about homosexuals and feed their martyrdom complex.

Mormons are no strangers to persecution. Indeed, persecution strokes their identity as a “peculiar people” (their phrase). And it will only strengthen Mormon resolve against what they perceive to be threats to their religion, like gay rights.

Also, an angry unfocused response to Proposition 8 invites irresponsible behavior and speech. Just a few days ago, for example, some punk mailed suspicious white powder to two LDS temples. Such actions must be swiftly and forcefully condemned.

Signs like “Keep your cult out of the culture wars” and “F**k you, bigots!” aren’t helpful either. If they do anything, they just make our calls for tolerance ring hollow.

Now, I don’t think violence or vitriol typify the protests. But sadly, that is what’s making the news.

The protests are making it easier for the Mormons to claim that they are the real victims, not the homosexuals whose marriage rights they helped rob. No matter how poor the LDS Church’s public image is, we cannot allow this debate to be framed as a religious liberties issue. We’ll lose. Time and time again.

Remember that the public opinion turned in favor of Proposition 8 only when the YES campaign dishonestly claimed that homosexuality would be thrust upon Californians in their churches and in their children’s schools. In other words, the YES campaign effectively painted the opponents of Proposition 8 as invasive and intolerant—they made us the bad guys.

At the same time, however, we cannot let up on pressuring the LDS Church. Bowing to pressures—both internal and external—in the past, the church gave up polygamy and the priesthood ban for blacks. What exactly a measured and effective amount of pressure would be, though, I don’t know. But I do know what it’s not: http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2008-11/43235098.jpg

There are already legal challenges to Proposition 8. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit claiming that a mere amendment is not adequate to strip people of what the California Constitution says is a “fundamental right”—marriage. A revision is required to strike the “fundamental right” language, and that takes a 2/3rds vote by citizens of California.

http://aclu.org/lgbt/relationships/37706prs20081105.html

Don’t invest too much in this lawsuit, though. From my understanding, the ACLU’s case is shaky and the California Supreme Court has rejected the “revision” argument in other cases.

Glenn Greenwald thinks there’s another answer to Proposition 8: A repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This would effectively gut Proposition 8 and render it useless, he argues. And thankfully, Obama has committed to repealing DOMA.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/06/doma/

These legal and political approaches to gay rights are fine so long as they are coupled with grassroots efforts. That might mean the occasional protest. Protests get our voices heard, which is important. But they rarely get our voices listened to. Gay rights advocates need to work on building bridges of dialogue. Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.”

I hope I haven’t been a downer; I’m really quite optimistic for the future. Equal rights will win out eventually. We (LGBT persons and allies) are on the winning side not only of an argument, but of history also.

Just half a century ago, the LDS Church and most of society opposed interracial marriage. In 1947, the First Presidency (the Mormon prophet and his two counselors) stated: “The intermarriage of the Negro and White races [is] a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now…We are not unmindful of the fact that there is a growing tendency…toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.**”

You know, for a church that claims to be protecting marriage, the LDS Church sure has a difficult time defining what exactly it is defending. One man, many women? One white man, one white woman? One man, one woman?

Progress, while hard-fought, is the natural arc of human history. And those institutions anchored in the past will drown with the rising tide of tomorrow.

If you are interested in the history of Mormon anti-gay policies and rhetoric, check out this link: http://www.affirmation.org/learning/anti-gay.shtml

I have also written about certain anti-gay policies at Brigham Young University: http://secweb.infidels.org/?kiosk=articles&id=764

*According recently leaked memos, LDS Church joined the coalition to have it serve as a cover. The LDS Church said that they want to take an activist approach against gay marriage, but was reluctant to be “out front.” The church had the money, but recognized that “the public image of the Catholic Church [was] higher than [their] church.” The LDS Church’s alliance with the Catholic Church is yet another oddity in this whole affair, as historically Mormons have vilified the Catholic Church as “the whore of Babylon” and “the great and abominable church.” (http://www.abc4.com/content/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=4a8a2464-6cf3-45d1-a0bd-606f034bae33)

**Even that ignorant statement represented progress over what Brigham Young (the second Mormon prophet) taught: “Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.”

A Sense of History

Robin Zhang — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:20:22 +0000

Meet your new president -

Tuesday was a truly historic day. Not only did America elect its first African-American president, but it also decided to reject the policies of perhaps the worst US president in history and also the fear-baiting, irrelavent fringe-issue politics of John McCain and Sarah Palin. And while racism certainly isn’t dead in America, the election of Barack Obama at the very least sends a powerful symbol to the rest of the world that we have begun to move past the old race and culture wars of the 1960s. And while Obama may be far from perfect and we don’t necessarily agree with all his policies, there is no doubt that he is extraordinarily intelligent and curious – and given the far-right stoicism and domination of religious conservatives in government of the past 8 years that have run the country into the ground, there is no place to go but up.

Obviously the election of a black man is a huge unprecidented milestone, but other milestones were reached today for the nation and the Democratic Party. I will attempt to list them below:

Barack Obama has won more votes than any other candidate for president in history. He also has won a greater percent of the popular vote than any other Democrat since 1964 and a greater percent of the popular vote than any candidate since 1988.
The Obama-Biden ticket is the first Democratic ticket without a southerner on the ticket to win since 1944.
Obama (or McCain for that matter) is the first president to have spent much of their childhood outside the country.
Obama won Virginia and Indiana. The former is of course the capitol of the old Confederacy. The latter is the 7th most conservative state in the nation. Neither state has gone for a Democrat since 1964.
Obama won North Carolina, a state that hasn’t gone for a Democrat since 1976.
Obama won the greatest number of electoral votes of any candidate since 1996.
Perhaps most importantly for Edger readers… Obama probably isn’t an atheist. But he has a multicultural as well as an interfaith family. His mother and father are atheists. He and Michelle are Christians (unless you ask Roy). His half-sister Maya is Buddhist. And his stepfather is Muslim. Hopefully this diversity will give us a President who is more inclusive of people of all beliefs rather than just someone who panders to the Religious Right.

Also, Obama won the popular vote by 53% to 46%, just as I had predicted. Furthermore, there is a good indication that the right-wing culture warriors are losing on the so-called “pro-life” issues -

South Dakota defeated a draconian abortion bill 55% to 45%
Colorado defeated a measure to define life as “the point of conception” 72% to 28%
California rejected Proposition 4, a parental notification measure, 52% to 48%
Michigan approved embryonic stem cell research 52% to 48%. They also approved medical marijuana by double digits.
Washington approved a measure to allow euthanasia of terminally ill patients 57% to 42%

But not everything went well on November 4th. While all the anti-abortion measures were defeated, anti-gay marriage measures were also defeated across the nation. We still have a long way to go -

Proposition 8 was passed 52% to 48%. Gay marriages are now banned in California according to its constitution, although homosexuals who have already married still are legally married… for now.
A constitutional ban on gay marriage was passed in Arizona 56% to 44%
A constitutional ban on gay marriage was passed in Florida 62% to 38%
A measure to ban gay adoption was passed in Arkansas 57% to 41%

Proposition 8 Post-Mortem

Proposition 8 was the only aforementioned measure that had a good chance of failing. In fact, it was trailing by 17% in the polls at one point. However, there were several factors that helped get it passed -

The Mormon Church. Say what you will about them, but they do have military-like precision, and they pumped enough money into the campaign to outspend the No on 8 people by a 2-to-1 margin. They also knew how to press peoples’ buttons. Rather than trying the measure as a civil rights issue, they falsely claimed that schools would be forced to impose the notion of homosexual marriage on young schoolchildren. They also falsely claimed that both Barack Obama and John McCain support Prop 8 (Obama opposes it)… but if you repeat a lie enough if becomes true.
Ineptitude of the No on 8 Campaign. The No on 8 Campaign blew a 17 point lead and endorsements by Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Arnold Schwarzenegger by a lack of funds and a lack of organization. They only really got off the ground one week before the election when they finally decided to take money from the teachers’ and the nurses’ unions. And by then it was too late. They also did not exploit endorsements by the aforementioned – all of whom are popular politicians in CA – until the very end either.
Old People. Young voters (those aged 18-29) overwhelmingly rejected Prop 8 62% to 38%. However, the 30-44 voting bloc split evenly on Prop 8, and those 45 years of age and older all voted for Prop 8 by significant margins.
San Bernadino and Fresno Counties. They voted for Prop 8 by almost 40% margins. Can we kick them out? The 51 state can be called Dumbifornia.

All in all, I was very pleased with Tuesday’s results. I would trade 20 Proposition 8s for an Obama administration, perhaps even more.

My Election Predictions

Robin Zhang — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:01:31 +0000

Hopefully I don’t jinx anything, but here goes…

Popular Vote

Barack Obama – 53% (353 EVs)

John McCain – 46% (185 EVs)

Ralph Nader’s Ego – 1% (0 EVs)

Swing States Obama Carries by > 10% Margin

Washington, Oregon, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Maine

Swing States Obama Carries by 5-10% Margin

Minnesota, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado

Swing States Obama Carries by 0-5% Margin

Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada

Swing States McCain Carries by 0-5% Margin

Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, Montana, Georgia

Traditional Swing States Obama Carries by 5-10% Margin

Arkansas, Arizona, South Dakota, West Virginia, Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District

Traditional Swing States Obama Carries by >10% Margin

Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee

Also… Proposition 8 in California will fail 52% to 48%.