Rick Warren Cancels 2012 Civil Forum Due to Incivility

Rick Warren has announced that he is cancelling the sequel to his civil forum which was scheduled to feature President Obama and Governor Romney in a televised interview format. Warren said the ongoing uncivil discourse of the campaign caused him to cancel the event.
Four years ago Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren held a forum at his church in which John McCain and Barack Obama answered questions on a number of topics. One of the highlights you may recall from the event was Obama’s statement that questions about when an unborn child becomes a human with rights were above his pay-grade. It was an obvious dodge of a question that is central in the abortion debate.

Warren had reached out to both candidates and they had each agreed to participate in a 2012 version of the same event. However, the tone of the campaign caused Warren to reassess. He told the Orange County Register ”The forums are meant to be a place where people of goodwill can seriously disagree on significant issues without being disagreeable or resorting to personal attack and name-calling. But that is not the climate of today’s campaign. I’ve never seen more irresponsible personal attacks, mean-spirited slander, and flat-out dishonest attack ads, and I don’t expect that tone to change before the election.”