It really ain’t specifically about Gays. They are the only ones who have the courage to speak out against intolerance.
The big issue is the basic moral value of our constitution: the separation of church and state. Our founders escaped the intolerance of Europe and understood that we should not inflict our particular religious beliefs upon others who do not share those beliefs. It is the only way we can preserve a diverse religious environment.
This preacher is an extremist. He condones the assassination of foreign heads of state. Reverend Wright was thrown under the bus for standing up for the underprivileged. But this bigot Warren is being given the highest honor to any pastor in Obama’s inauguration ceremonies.
We need to speak out. It is the only way Obama will be able to do the right thing. Otherwise, he will continue to drift toward the right and authoritarianism.

Perhaps there is a part of the anger Melissa does not understand. This pastors words, campaigns have prevented us from total equality and have made discrimination OK. In fact his campaign is about far more than marriage. Any gay man can tell you we are targeted for violence and campaigns like these inspire violence, especially against gay men. I have been bashed twice. Once in LA and once in New York. Both very serious acts of hatred, both inspired by taught bias. We stand loud, we stand firm, because we are fighting for our lives. Did you know that more than 60% of all gay men face hate violence? While its great you had a meeting, want to build bridges the fact remains this guy has made a career out of inspiring hatred and may be responsible for leading others to violence and perhaps, even murder. This is the fact that needs to brought into the light. My former Partner, who was a Composer was never the same after being beating with a gold club in the head. I has an injury to the neck and could not talk for two weeks, broken ribs. He even lost his hearing in one ear. He was never the same, went down hill and finally died and we all believe it was the bashing that led to his early death at 47. Its not about marriage, its about the attacks, it’s about the murders that must stop. When your at the inauguration tell your friend about my dead friend, how hate killed him and how his campaign to inspire hatred in the hearts of young Americans needs to stop. When you stop the bias, you stop the hate, then the violence will come to an end. Have fun at the party, but please tell him about the murders. Making room for hate is not the path to reconcillation, as Obama claims. It will only keep it alive.

“I know that many on the left become downright apoplectic at the thought of Christians trying to impose their view of marriage on others but aren’t those who are pushing for gay marriage trying to impose their views on them?”
No dear, it is not like that at all. No one on the left is telling Christians (or anyone else) that they cannot marry the person with whom they wish to set up a loving home. When gay marriage is legal, heterosexuals of all religions will continue to be able to marry.
It is your side that wishes to tell a certain group of Americans that their relationships do not qualify for legal recognition. You really are trying to impose your values on others. We are simply saying that everyone gets to make their own choice of whom to marry. No one will force you into a gay marriage or forbid you from marrying a member of the opposite sex. There is quite a difference.

Your name, I’m sorry you had such hate inflicted on you and your partner. I remember in the early 80′s in and around Castro St. in San Francisco you couldn’t walk on Castro St. after 9:00 P.M. The Gay people would be attacked, and some of them were even the police attacking. Some of the young gay don’t know what the early gay people coming out for their rights went through. I wish Etheridge and Obama luck, but I’ll tell you the bridge just might fall through in the middle. Beware of soft phoney words, actions speak louder than false platitudes. The only thing that will stop this outrage is for our government to once and for all give equal rights to all our citizens, and when the religious extremists act up just arrest them as the Black Rights finally did.

“Christians don’t fear gays” Of course Christians don’t fear gays- Christians like Warren and Reformed Chicks just look down upon them – find them inferior. C’mon Reformed. Admit it. You do feel superior. This post just drips with it.

I commend both Melissa Etheridge and Rick Warren for their willingness to come together. I believe this is the new politics President-Elect Obama has in mind, dialoguing without demonizing. I wish him luck and will participate as I’m able. My fear is that the LGBT community will become to Obama what the religious right is to Bush and other conservatives. We’ve been hyjacked by one issue politics for too long. There is too much at stake to continue down that road.

So it’s good to come together in the new politics of diversity, no name, when it might help us understand the fundamentalists, but it is suspicious when Obama may see that the GLBT will have an equal place in America as you have? Do not compare apples with oranges, they are different.

I know that many on the left become downright apoplectic at the thought of Christians trying to impose their view of marriage on others but aren’t those who are pushing for gay marriage trying to impose their views on them?
Quite simply, no.
No gay person is asking any anti-gay-marriage-religionist person to believe anything other than what they believe. They’re simply saying that they are free to believe as *they* believe, and that their beliefs are as worthy of state protection as the anti-gay-marriage-religionists.
Anti-gay-marriage-religionists are quick to scream blue murder when they think their religious freedoms are being damaged. Well guess what? By codifying their personal religious convictions, they are spitting directly in the eye of all of those people whose religions disagree with them.
Do those religious believers not have rights, too?

Equality will never come from labeling people whose religious expressions make you uncomfortable, and by this, I do not mean horrendous acts of violence. I am talking about the freedom of expression that is being squashed every day by people who want to dominate the landscape.
Right now, people of faith are under attack whether Jewish, Catholic, Protestant and Mormon. No attacks on Muslims–yet–because they do not mess around.
Activist Gays not only carry clout, they also carry a big stick, case in point Rosie O’Donnell stating radical Christians were the same as radical Muslims, but she never defined her use of the word radical. Her studio audience applauded.
The left view tolerance as validation, not as true tolerance that allows for differing viewpoints. I do not see this ever happening in America while condescending remarks are bantered back and forth. Civil War is more likely.
Elitist control the media and perpetuate the myth that they are inclusive. There are no broadcast TV shows with Black, Hispanic, Asian or other groups as leads. Why? There are many talented individuals of non-white descent. CSI just brought in Laurence Fishburne, but lets see how the show’s ratings do with this marvelous actor. I hope it does well.
Why is Obama considered a black president if he is the child of an interracial union?
America is too complex to push that the left has all the answers and the right is completely wrong OR VICE-VERSA.
I am glad that Melissa and Rick spoke, and that it was positive. But to me that is not the miracle, the miracle would be the positive that could out of it.
It should not be Gays vs Christians. It should be Christians loving Gays the way Christ ministered to the woman who had sinned, the blind man, the lame man, the Samaritan woman and many others, and it should also be that Gays stop demonizing Christians for holding to Biblical truths that say certain behaviors are wrong.
Destroying a person because of his or her faith is echo of history that does not need to be repeated–ever!
The fact is that everyone will not agree, and true tolerance allows for diversity.

Still some of you just don’t get it. Just last week here in New York a man, who was hugging his own brother, was murdered while being called a fag, perceived to be gay. His wife and kids are devastated. Alone on Christmas. This is about spreading hatred that leads to violence and murder. Your argument is that its OK to discriminate. WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!! its NOT OK to discriminate! It is legal for us to marry. It is illegal to block it based on your religious bias. So its morally wrong to discriminate, it against the law, according to the constitution, yet you all make excuses for hatred and for bias as you sit by while Americans are brutalized and murdered. Why? It’s called supremacy. Freedom only works if everyone has it. If you really want religion to run the government so it can control the lives of people then move to the Middle east. That’s thier tradition not America’s. STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR BIAS! STOP ALLOWING HATE TO THRIVE!! STOP!!!!!!!!STOP IT!!!! Stand up equality or just make excuses while people die. Thats just plaij ole evil. That’s your choice, these are the facts. Ar

Christ instructed me, as his blood-bought child to “love my neighbor as myself” (Mat. 22:39). This I will do. My flesh will rebel, and I will wrestle with it, but I will do this. He said that “if any man would follow him, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow after him” (Mat. 16:24, emphasis mine). This also I will do. With a servants hear, I pray to do this every day.
However, I will not accept a lifestyle that is sin (not my opinion, but God’s word); that will lead another to his or her ultimate destruction and eternal torment (again, not my opinion, but God’s word on the matter). Pastor Warren is absolutely correct in his exhortation about loving all. What I as a Christian have a problem with is the undercurrent that if I do not offer acceptance of that sinful lifestyle, then I do not love them. The key word here is acceptance. Webster’s defines the verb accept as:
1 a: to receive willingly 2: to give admittance or approval to 3 a: to endure without protest or reaction b: to regard as proper, normal, or inevitable c: to recognize as true: BELIEVE (sic)
So it seems, we need a clear definition of what Homosexuals want from the American Christian community, and what Christians are allowed by their faith to extend. The phrase that seems to fit the bill is to allow. Christians are commanded to allow, as God allows, men and women to make choices that are in conflict with God’s desire for our behavior. We must offer love, patience, and longsuffering to those who choose to engage in a destructive lifestyle. We are to be a shining example of God’s love, and the life-altering, sin-sacrificing, pulled-me-out-of-the-pit grace that Jesus Christ displayed on the cross of Calvary. What we cannot do is to give acceptance, that is: approval, endure without protest or reaction, nor to regard as proper, normal, or inevitable what will lead to a person’s destruction. The bible states clearly: “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). A follower of Christ can no more wink at homosexuality, than any other of the offenses mentioned in these passages. Quite the opposite in fact, the commandment of Jesus to love my neighbor as myself requires me to: disapprove, protest, react negatively, and regard as improper, abnormal, and not-inevitable a path that will lead to my neighbor’s exclusion from God’s heaven. Any other stance would fall short of the mandate given by Jesus himself: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mat. 28:18-20). Peace, and God’s love be with you this Christmas.

First of all, as a gay man who went to school in Berkeley and worked in San Francisco in the early 80′s, I had a totally different experience of the Castro. Gays were not the ones at risk of bashing. In fact one of the most colorful experiences I ever had in the Castro was a little old lady spying a man and woman obviously in love and opinining, “How disgusting, a man and woman holding hands.”
As for,
“This pastors words, campaigns have prevented us from total equality and have made discrimination OK. In fact his campaign is about far more than marriage. Any gay man can tell you we are targeted for violence and campaigns like these inspire violence, especially against gay men. I have been bashed twice. Once in LA and once in New York. Both very serious acts of hatred, both inspired by taught bias. We stand loud, we stand firm, because we are fighting for our lives. ”
Nonsense.
Unless you believe Rick Warren has the power of Moses or Jesus to work miracles, you attribute to him far more power than he has. I don’t agree with the man, either, but he hard singly responsible for making discrimination OK. Discrimination is at its least in California, and such discrimination as exists existed long before Warren cam eon the scene. And if you’ve been bashed twice, for heaven sakes, straight men learn to defend themselves against muggers, why can’t you? I’ve been mugged, twice, but that wasn’t because I’m gay. It was because I’m white and obviously have money. Learn the difference. Don’t be a drama queen.