Obama Marriage Evolution Over

by | May 10, 2012 | Feature, Headline News | 1 comment

COMING OUT: President Barack Obama tells Robin Roberts of ABC's 'Good Morning America' that he now supports same-sex marriage. (White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage in an interview with Good Morning America host Robin Roberts Wednesday. The president said that as practicing Christians, both he and Mrs. Obama understand that their shared position puts them at odds with some of their fellow believers.

“When we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts,” Obama said. “I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word ‘marriage’ was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs and so forth.”

The president decided “early in 2012” that he personally supports same-sex marriage, “top administration officials” said, according to the Huffington Post. He had planned to state his support at the Democratic Convention, HuffPost reported, but Vice President Joe Biden drew renewed attention to the issue Sunday in a Meet the Press interview.

The president’s announcement came one day after North Carolina became the thirtieth state in the nation (according to Baptist Press) to constitutionally define marriage as between a man and a woman. The North Carolina amendment not only defines marriage, it also prohibits “New Jersey-style civil unions, which grant same-sex couples all the state legal benefits of marriage, minus the name,” Baptist Press reported

“The announcement completes a turnabout for the president, who has opposed gay marriage throughout his career in national politics,” ABC News reported, saying President Obama indicated support for same-sex marriage in 1996 as a state Senate candidate, but came out against it as a US Senate candidate in 2004. At that time, he cited his own faith as a reason for his opposition: “I’m a Christian. I do believe that tradition and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman,” Obama reportedly said.

Conservative Outrage

Conservative Christian leaders are “outraged” by the president’s announcement and “vowed to use it as an organizing tool in the 2012 elections,” CNN reported. Among the opponents cited is Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Bishop Harry Jackson, senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in suburban Washington D.C.; and political organizer Ralph Reed.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland Church near Orlando, Florida, told the Associated Press that the president called him before he spoke out in favor of same-sex marriage Wednesday.

“Hunter says he told the president he disagreed with his interpretation of what the Bible says about marriage. Hunter says the president reassured him he would protect the religious freedom of churches who oppose gay marriage. Hunter says the announcement makes it harder for him to support Obama, but he will continue to do so,” AP reported.

Black Christian News Network collated statements by other Christian leaders who oppose the President’s position. Among them is Pastor Jentezen Franklin, who reportedly said, “Feel a real sadness for America with the announcement of Gay Marriage support from Pres. Obama. Bible is clear this is sin. PRAY!”

“The charade is finally up,” Gary Bauer, president of American Values, is quoted as saying in an article at World. “We’ve always known that Barack Obama supports same-sex marriage. With every action he’s taken, from court appointments to his rhetoric, he’s been preparing the way to undermine traditional marriage. Obama’s finally made that support explicit.”

World also quoted National Organization of Marriage co-founder Maggie Gallagher, who reportedly said, “Politically, we welcome this. We think it’s a huge mistake.” NOM actively opposes same-sex marriage.

‘Golden Rule’ Christianity

At Religion News Service, religion scholar Mark Silk cited sociologist Nancy Ammerman in saying that the president’s “Golden Rule Christianity” is the “dominant form of lived religion in the American mainstream.” “At the end of the day, we Americans find it difficult not to yield to its demands when a case for equal treatment is made (be it for blacks or women or disfavored religious minorities), even when the other side offers up its own religious arguments,” said Silk.

“There is a right and wrong side of history in the struggle for full and absolute equality for LGBT people,” said Huffington Post religion channel editor Paul Brandeis Raushenbush on Tuesday. “All signs indicate that America is in the last decades of the misguided and hurtful effort to treat lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people as second class citizens. And, if history is any guide, a few decades after that the ‘mea culpa’ and formal apologies will come. … Here’s an idea. Why don’t we just skip the ‘more oppression’ part and move straight to the reconciliation and full communion? Saying that gay people can’t be Christian (or really anything we want to be) isn’t going to work much longer anyway,” said Raushenbush.

What do you think?

What is the significance of the president’s announcement?

Yes We Cain

by | Jun 14, 2011 | Feature, Headline News | 1 comment

THE HERMINATOR: Herman Cain takes the stage to address the Conservative Political Action conference (CPAC) in Washington last February. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Newscom)

Herman Cain, an aspiring GOP presidential candidate, appeared out of nowhere. Or did he? Cain, an African-American Atlanta native, rose to prominence in the business world as an executive at the Pillsbury Company and then as CEO of the Godfather’s Pizza chain. He gained notoriety in the political arena by critiquing President Clinton’s healthcare plan in the mid ’90’s and pursuing the U.S. Senate in 2004. He went on to distinguish himself as a motivational speaker and conservative talk-radio host who sometimes calls himself “the Herminator.” But in terms of national name recognition—a critical commodity in politics—Cain essentially appeared out of nowhere.

Dr. Melissa Harris Perry, a noted commentator and professor of political science at Tulane University, approaches Cain’s candidacy as an opportunity to reflect on African-American political conservatism. I intend to do something similar, but I’d also like to highlight the religious inflections of the tradition and suggest one area where conservatives and liberals can collaborate.

Standard storylines of black religion and politics lean leftward, connoting images of the Reverends King, Sharpton, and Jackson. This impression is both false and misleading: false because it obscures the work of other faith-filled public servants like Leah Daughtry, Marian Wright Edelman, and Kay Coles James; misleading because it suggests that black politics and faith are inherently liberal—complete with an interventionist view of the State on economic policy.

Cain’s campaign, by contrast, can be seen as a reminder that black faith and politics often reach rightward. In a recent political speech he listed “Almighty God,” his grandchildren, and a love of country as the motivating factors for his race to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The God, grandchildren, and country motif, of course, is not inherently conservative, but is nonetheless a vision of America that black conservatives invoke more frequently than black liberals. From an academic perspective, Barbara Diane Savage reminds us in Their Spirits Walk Beside Us—and Eddie Glaude more popularly in his “Black Church is Dead” piece—the intersections of black faith and politics are varied. From Jupiter Hammon to the burgeoning black participation in right-to-life movements, any honest read of Christians within African-American religious studies reveals that the “God, grandchildren, and country” motif—or some variation thereof—has always been a part of the diverse tapestry of black faith in public life. For every Rev. Jesse Jackson, there is a Bishop Harry Jackson; for every Suzan Johnson Cook, there is an Alveda C. King.

Many bemoan the manifold manifestations of black faith and politics. We can, however, perceive the brute fact of this diversity as an opportunity for collaboration. For example, conservative pastors and politicians organize to help small businesses flourish, a critical concern that black liberals often overlook. The omission is significant: small businesses employ the majority of Americans, comprise a small but expanding percentage of industry in our urban areas, and thus are a pillar of any viable economic development strategy within America’s regions. Contrastively, liberal black pastors and politicians emphasize our system of social insurance (Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and Workers Compensation) as a promise that the government makes to American families, and—this is the point conservatives often overlook—the precondition for economic mobility in an exceedingly tight labor market.

Rarely, however, do we hear either liberals or conservatives argue explicitly about the importance of the civil sector. And yet, the civil sector, which harbors everything from universities and foundations to civil rights organizations and churches, is uniquely poised to advance an agenda of economic development and mobility.

I’ll conclude with a practical suggestion: Given the shared political emphasis on creating a vibrant and equitable economy, let’s seize the candidacy of Herman Cain as a moment to re-imagine how people of faith, across the political spectrum, might reinvigorate the performance and political presence of the civil sector.