The XX Factor: What women really think.

So the Cure for Bias Is, er, Bias?

Melinda, you are precisely right that extreme right/left black/white thinking got us into this polarized, judgmental 2008 mess, and that Obama’s willingness to get beyond such thinking is exactly why so many of us were attracted to him. But isn’t the argument that Rick Warren must be a great man because he reverse tithes just as absolutist? Nobody (except maybe Hitchens) is suggesting that Warren hasn’t done extraordinary work toward relieving AIDS and poverty and global warming. But that doesn’t change the fact that not only does he not speak for all Americans, he also expressly rejects some of their very basic rights. We can debate about whether the right to marry someone you love constitutes a basic right. But—and here is where Hanna and I probably differ—I don’t think Warren is really interested in having that kind of argument.

I also think it’s not quite fair to claim that any criticism of Warren represents some kind of generalized anti-religious bias. Too many people of very deep faith don’t make Warren’s cut. That doesn’t make us religion-haters. It just means that you can’t call it “bringing people together” if you are honoring one group’s message while denigrating another’s.