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NOT A USEFUL METRIC.
John McWhorter offers an interesting comparison of Rick Warren and Joseph Lowery at TNR:
Warren opposes gay marriage; 70 percent of black voters in California supported Proposition 8. Warren is pro-life; in 2004, a Zogby poll tabulated that while about half of Americans overall were pro-life, 62 percent of blacks were.Black Reverend Joseph Lowery, heading up the rear doing the inaugural benediction, has the positions Warren's detractors prefer: pro-choice, in favor of gay marriage. These, however, cannot be treated as default "black" views, because so very many black people of all walks do not share them. Warren and Lowery will represent two variations on black ideology, of which the one Warren represents is arguably the dominant one.
That's true. But if we're just measuring who best represents black ideology based on views of gay marriage and abortion, then Rick Warren is more representative than Barack Obama. But I don't see anyone on Georgia Avenue wearing Rick Warren t-shirts, so there's probably more to it than that.
--A. Serwer
COMMENTS (5)
Well to start with, Rick Warren isn't black. That was another point in the article: if TJ Jakes had been chosen, no fuss would have been made even though he holds those same views -- because he's black, and it's OK if you're because, you know, that's diversity, or... something.
Posted by: Just Saying | December 23, 2008 1:45 PM
as a gay man, i find unacceptable any justification for including in the inaugural anyone who believes that denying basic civil rights to a class of people is acceptable.
if Obama--for whom i voted, albeit with reservations--wants to be inclusive and reach out to the evangelicals, then why didn't he invite a white supremacist?
or is it that some forms of discrimination and prejudice are acceptable and others aren't?
Posted by: drsampson | December 23, 2008 5:14 PM
Heck, Mr. President, you haven't even taken office yet, and you've already committed your first major blunder! I hope that your selection of this ignorant, intolerant wack job is not an indication of how you plan to make peace with the religious right (for more information, see "appeasement").
You told us that in order for positive change to occur, we all had to pitch in and do our part. I'll certainly shoulder my share of the burden, Mr. President, but you still have to hold up your end of the bargain.
Posted by: Joseph McCarthy | December 23, 2008 6:46 PM
Why is anyone quoting John McWhorter? Since when is it news that he chronicly oversimplifies ethnicity issues?
Posted by: Anonymous | December 24, 2008 7:48 AM
I'm not sure that Warren is a better representative of black views on gays and abortion than a Lowery.
Political preferences exist in two dimensions: direction and intensity. I do not doubt that Warren and the hypothetical median black voter go in the same direction on gender issues. But they are very different on intensity. The HMBV is not very intense on this issue. We know this because the HMBV votes strong Democratic (even when the candidate is not Obama), and Warren does not.
Posted by: Joe S. | December 24, 2008 1:00 PM