OBAMA BAD? CLINTON GOOD!

I should have known that PUMA types would be making that argument -- here's egalia from the pro-PUMA blog Tennessee Guerilla Women:

Hillary Rodham Clinton would not have picked a pro-lifer, nor a homophobe, not in a million years.

Oh, really?

Support for Promise Keepers

* At his weekly radio address on 1997-OCT-4 (the date of the Washington rally) President Clinton said:

"Their presence here is yet another example of the nation's understanding and attention to the need to strengthen our families. There is nothing more important...The need for men to take responsibility for themselves and their families is something that unites Americans of all faiths and backgrounds and beliefs" ...

* First Lady Hillary Clinton has expressed reservations about the PK leadership, but praised the movement in her book "It Takes a Village."

(When I get home tonight, I'll update this with the exact quote from her book.)*

Maybe you don't remember the Promise Keepers from their mid-1990s heyday:

At a recent Promise Keepers rally in Dallas, evangelist Tony Evans called homosexuality "immorality in the name of hell." And founder [Bill] McCartney is on the advisory board of the virulently anti-gay Colorado For Family Values, the group that sponsored Amendment 2, a measure to overturn civil rights laws that protect gays and lesbians from discrimination.

According to published reports, McCartney said that "homosexuality is an abomination against Almighty God," and gay people are "a group of people who don't reproduce, yet want to be compared to people who do reproduce." McCartney has called gay people "stark raving mad."

Various speakers at Promise Keepers rallies have railed against abortion. McCartney equates a woman's right to choose an abortion with "taking a life."

So, yeah, the Warren thing is utterly wrong, but don't assume it's an error Hillary Clinton would necessarily have avoided.

****

egalia adds:

Rick Warren is supposed to be a new and improved Jeremiah Wright? I'd rather have Jeremiah Wright.

Ironically, if Jeremiah Wright were still in the picture, he'd be the most gay-friendly preacher at an inaugural ever:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s controversial ex-pastor in Chicago has largely supported gay rights and has welcomed gays into his 8,000-member congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ, according to activists who know him.

...revelations of Wright’s controversial sermons have raised questions among some activists about whether Obama’s longtime pastor was among the preachers who delivered fire-and-brimstone sermons attacking homosexuality.

"Absolutely not," said Rick Garcia, political director of Equality Illinois, the Chicago-based state gay rights group.

"Trinity has been among the strongest supporters of LGBT rights," Garcia said. "I have the highest regard and admiration for Rev. Wright."

Gay Chicago resident Ronald Wadley, a member of Trinity United Church of Christ, said Wright enthusiastically backed suggestions by gay church members to create a gay and lesbian singles ministry as part of the church's existing ministry to heterosexual singles.

"We call it the same-gender loving family ministry," Wadley said. "It's a ministry that was formed to allow people to have an outlet to reconcile their sexuality with their spirituality," he said....

*****

*Here's the quote, from pp. 41 and 42 of It Takes a Village:

After years of casual attitudes about divorce in this country, heartening efforts are under way to help more couples preserve their marriages. Grassroots campaigns that urge men to take more responsibility for family well-being are cropping up around the country. Diverse (and sometimes controversial) as they and their leaders are, the popular response they have elicited reflects a broad public concern with the question of personal accountability. Promise Keepers, a nondenominational ministry, has filled football stadiums with men seeking guidance and encouragement to lead more ethical lives.