Religion & Law

Caught In the Middle

By John Pieret

Two highly polarized camps agree on one thing: anyone who is trying to steer anything like a middle course and pragmatically achieve the socially possible, while attempting to move the debate in a progressive direction, is to be scorned.

No, I'm not talking about the reaction of both IDers and "incompatiblists" towards theistic evolutionists. This time it's the reaction of fundamentalists and some portions of the LGBT community to President Obama's quiet proclamation of LGBT Pride Month. As described by Nick Street:

One of the ironies in the broader reaction to Obama's maneuvering around the issue of legal parity for queerfolk in various domains of American life is the fact that, like the busybodies on the religious right, many of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters have a hard time letting themselves feel good about this president.

"Homosexuality is nothing to be proud of," Peter LaBarbera told One News Now, the online news division of the American Family Association. "The fact is people have left the lifestyle," said LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. "People have overcome homosexuality?I think that's something to be proud of." ...

"Obama is a better friend to Rick Warren's constituency than to LGBT," one "homosexual activist" remarked, apropos of the White House press release, on the Advocate's Web site. "In fact, Obama is not now and has never been a friend of LGBT. I didn't believe his lies before November 4, 2008, and I don't believe his lies now."

Full post as published by Thoughts in a Haystack on June 12, 2009 (boomark / email).