Revolution Online, January 20, 2009
Rick Warren Protested and Disrupted During MLK Day Speech—Called “Bigot”
Revolution received the following report from World Can’t Wait:
“Rick Warren is a bigot! No ‘common ground’ with bigot Rick Warren!” shouted Sunsara Taylor as Rick Warren began his keynote address at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. She unfurled a banner that read “NO ‘Common Ground’ with Bigot Rick Warren!” and then was taken out by the ushers. The banner included the website, revcom.us, the revolutionary communist newspaper Sunsara writes for.
Following Sunsara, several other people turned their backs on Warren and were also forced to leave the church. Earlier in the day, about 100 people protested outside the church in a demonstration initiated by Black LGBT coalition and joined by GBLT Atlanta, TILLT, World Can't Wait, and others. The protest was spirited and attracted a lot of media.
“It is hard to think of anyone more antithetical to the legacy of the Civil Rights movement,” explained Sunsara Taylor. “Rick Warren is a bigot. He has dedicated himself to taking away people’s rights – the rights of gay people, the rights of women to abortion and birth control. He preaches unthinking obedience to biblical literalism and denies evolution. He is aggressively involved in efforts that are causing untold numbers of African people to suffer and die from AIDS by promoting ‘abstinence-only’ and disparaging condoms.”
“My intention is to rip away the moral and ideological cover Rick Warren and his bigotry are being given by being associated with the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement,” explained Sunsara, continuing, “This is all the more important given that Rick Warren and his re-branded Christian bigotry is being elevated in the country as a whole. He is giving the invocation at the inauguration – he is no minor figure and people must know what a bigot he truly is. By exposing Warren, I am standing up for people’s rights and calling on others to do likewise. No common ground with bigots.”
This action is built on the protests held by the World Can’t Wait organization in Los Angeles outside Warren’s Saddleback Church yesterday, Sunday January 18th. Protesters there handed out pink triangles, the symbol the Nazis used to label homosexuals and sexual deviants. Tomorrow, as Warren delivers the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration, more protests are expected.
For further reference, see Sunsara Taylor’s article in the current issue of Revolution now circulating on the internet (revcom.us)
youtube video of Sunsara disrupting Rick Warren speech at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mab0KUYOc0
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