Russell Moore on Rubio's Tolerance Remarks: I Wanted to Say 'Amen' Very Loudly (Video Interview)
WASHINGTON — Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, praised Sen. Marco Rubio's, R-Florida, Wednesday speech at the Catholic University of America as both courageous and civil.
"I thought it was a combination of courage and of civility," he told The Christian Post after the event. "He not only took strong stands ... he did it, strikingly, in a tone indicating he did not simply want to score points, he wanted to speak to people who disagreed with him."
Moore was on a panel discussing the speech and the ERLC co-sponsored the event.
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During part of the speech, which focused on the importance of culture and values for alleviating poverty, Rubio condemned the recent trend of intolerance among some liberals toward those who disagree with them about same-sex marriage.
"This intolerance in the name of tolerance is hypocrisy," Rubio remarked.
When asked about that part of the speech, Moore said he "wanted to say 'amen' very loudly because I think he's exactly right.
"We're seeing a movement in this country right now that not only wants to win, it wants to silence all dissent and that's not healthy for this democracy at all. ... People are treated as pariahs simply because they hold the convictions that, as he mentioned, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton held to until just very recent years."
During the panel discussion, the respondents decried the fact that communities in the United States are becoming more homogenous along class lines. In his CP interview, Moore lamented the fact that churches, as well as communities are divided by class.
"The churches that are most effective right now," he said, "are congregations in which people across the economic plane are living together, where there is a spiritual leadership that is not based upon social and economic categories."
