Rick Warrens disappointing Forum

Obama is trying to hoodwink Evangelical voters.

Pastor Rick Warren is enabling this, with his ‘forum’.

Now ... what issues are of importance to Rev Warren?

“The primaries proved that Americans care deeply about the faith, values, character and leadership convictions of candidates as much as they do about the issues. While I know both men as friends and they recognize I will be frank, but fair, they also know I will be raising questions in these four areas beyond what political reporters typically ask. This includes pressing issues that are bridging divides in our nation, such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate and human rights.”

Really now. What a disappointing list of topics that will do absolutely nothing to tell us who is best to lead.

The Elephant (or donkey) in the room are the major issues least discussed in this race so far: Gay marriage, abortion, and judges.


Gay Marriage: Redefining marriage to include homosexual unions is about to be instituted across America if California doesnt protect
traditional marriage in its state constitution in the election this November. New York state is about to accept marriage licenses from California, and
so the de facto result will be the spread of gay marriage across the country.
McCain is for the Cali amendment protecting marriage. Obama is a against it, and is therefore now in the pro-gay-marriage camp.

Abortion: Obama is a pro-abortion legislator, who has a 100% NARAL record and 0% right-to-life record. Obama even voted
against a bill that would protect infants born alive after ‘botched’ abortions. McCain’s pro-life record is almost the opposite; strong
pro-life record, but in favor of embyonic stem cell research. Both men need to be asked about their positions and asked to defend them.

Judges: McCain voted for Roberts and Alito, Obama voted against both. Judges have too often ruled on matters involving church and
state, in ways that undermines our Christian heritage. They need to be asked to defend their approach to selecting and approving judges.

Education: Obama’s opposition to abstinence education should be brought up, and their views on sex ed. McCain and Obama
differ on school choice. The vital issue of education should be discussed, especially the areas of sex ed, educating moral values and citizenship, and school choice.

Abortion, marriage, education, judges - these are fundamental issues that must be discussed!

Two hours devoted to the questions Rev Warren mentions instead of the above important differences between the two candidates will be a huge missed opportunity. The topics he wants to cover will inform us little:

Poverty: The US Federal Govt spend hundreds of billions of dollars redistributing wealth from taxpayers to address ‘poverty’. There is no leadership issue there, since it takes no leadership to take from Peter to give to Paul, just the power of the state. What would take leadership though is better economic management and economic growth policies that long-term will reduce poverty.
HIV/AIDS: unless the president is actively going to stop STDs, this is more of a “what taxpayer funded program shall we increase?” question. On that score, President Bush’s Africa AIDS initiative got bipartisan support. So this will be a genial agreement area.
Climate: The earth has stopped warming in the past 10 years. It would be better for candidates to say nothing on this, and just wait for the temperature record to tell us if global warming is real or not. So long as the earth is not warming, it’s a non-issue.
Human rights - It might be nice to see one candidate speak out on behalf of the US military and point out that by liberating 50 million people in the past 7 years, no organization has done more to advance human rights in that time period than the U.S. military, but I don’t expect it from Obama, who won’t even credit the military for the successes in Iraq.

On these 4 issues, we will get vague assurances from both candidates that they will ‘do the right thing’. They will not be much different. What’s the point of dwelling on something where they are the same?