Melissa Etheridge on Rick WarrenOscar and Grammy winning songwriter, and long time outspoken advocate for the gay community, Melissa Etheridge has a great piece on Huffington Post about Rick Warren.
Apparently Etheridge was to perform a song at the recent Muslim Public Affairs Council. When she got there, she discovered that the Council had asked Rick Warrren to give the key note address. Etheridge describes how she immediately wanted to cancel and make this a political statement. However, the focus for the evening's event was top promote peace. Etheridge in her article describes her internal struggle and finally asked herself the question...
Do I stand for peace or not?
So Etheridge decided to invite Warren to meet with her. Warren readily and heartily accepted. Prior to their meeting Etheridge had this to say about Warren:
I hadn't heard of Pastor Rick Warren before all of this. When I heard the news, in its neat little sound bite form that we are so accustomed to, it painted the picture for me. This Pastor Rick must surely be one hate spouting, money grabbing, bad hair televangelist like all the others. He probably has his own gay little secret bathroom stall somewhere, you know. One more hater working up his congregation to hate the gays, comparing us to pedophiles and those who commit incest, blah blah blah. Same 'ole thing.
However, when Warren and she met, Etheridge saw something completely different as she says,
Before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn't want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife's struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine.
Etheridge ends her piece with this statement, one which I think everyone should heed in regard to Warren's choice as she says:
Brothers and sisters the choice is ours now. We have the world's attention. We have the capability to create change, awesome change in this world, but before we change minds we must change hearts. Sure, there are plenty of hateful people who will always hold on to their bigotry like a child to a blanket. But there are also good people out there, Christian and otherwise that are beginning to listen. They don't hate us, they fear change. Maybe in our anger, as we consider marches and boycotts, perhaps we can consider stretching out our hands. Maybe instead of marching on his church, we can show up en mass and volunteer for one of the many organizations affiliated with his church that work for HIV/AIDS causes all around the world.
Comments (1)
Wow.