JEREMY REDMON | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Monday, January 19, 2009

Dozens of gay activists protested the Rev. Rick Warren’s speech Monday at the Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative services outside Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Gathering at the corner of Jackson Street and Auburn Avenue, they hoisted signs declaring: “We still have a dream: Equality.” And they chanted: “Gay, straight, black or white, we demand our civil rights.”

Warren, a best-selling author and the pastor of an evangelical mega church in California, helped rally support in California to outlaw same-sex marriage.

“Rick Warren is not a voice of unity or equality,” said Jeff Schade, director of GLBTATL, which stands for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans gender Atlanta.

The gay community, meanwhile, is also angry with President-elect Barack Obama for choosing Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration on Tuesday.

Kristin Cole, a spokes woman for Warren, said the pastor would not comment before the inauguration. Cole, however, confirmed Warrens church believes “homosexuality is a sin” and that he urged his parishioners to support Proposition 8 in California, which amended the state constitution to ban gay marriage. At the same time, Cole pointed to Warrens work helping HI patients in the United ...   more »

Max Blumenthal | AlterNet

Once hailed by Time magazine as "America's Pastor," California megachurch leader and best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren now finds himself on the defensive. President-elect Barack Obama's selection of Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer has generated intense scrutiny of the pastor's beliefs on social issues, from his vocal support for Proposition 8, a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage in California, to his comparison of homosexuality to pedophilia, incest and bestiality. Many of Obama's supporters have demanded that he withdraw the invitation.

Warren's defense against charges of intolerance ultimately depends upon his ace card: his heavily publicized crusade against AIDS in Africa. Obama senior adviser David Axelrod cited Warren's work in Africa as one of "the things on which [Obama and Warren] agree" on the Dec. 28 episode of Meet the Press. Warren may be opposed to gay rights and abortion, the thinking goes, but he tells evangelicals it is their God-given duty to battle one of the greatest pandemics in history. What could be wrong with that?

But since the Warren inauguration controversy erupted, the nature of his work against AIDS in Africa has gone unexamined. Warren has not been particularly forthcoming ...   more »

To me, a Black Gay man who has endured both racism and heterosexism, and who sees no difference in the kind of discrimination they generate, this debate has always sounded silly. — Stuffed Animal

Parts One & Two | Stuffed Animal | Dec 31, 2008

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s April 1963 Letter From A Birmingham Jail is one of the defining documents of the American anti-segregation movement. Just about anybody who was alive in the early 1960s has heard of it. Dr. King wrote the Letter during a period of incarceration in Birmingham, Alabama. This was one of numerous occasions when civil disobedience on behalf of racial equality landed him behind bars. If the work MLK put into his Birmingham Jail essay is any indication, he certainly used his time in lock-up constructively. It was written in response to a public statement by eight White Alabama clergymen who opposed the confrontational tactics he used. They’d denounced him for leading street demonstrations, and argued that other, less disruptive means should be used to combat institutionalized racism.

It should come as no surprise that Dr. King’s oratory was no less powerful on paper than it was in the pulpit. After publication in the 12 June ...   more »