Obama Selects Rick Warren for Invocation
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Barack, Homosexuality, Obama Appointments, Religion
This isn’t going to make gay rights activists happy.
Barack Obama has selected evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Once again, Obama seems more interested in reaching out rather than reaching inwards towards his base.
While Warren is not of the fire-and-brimstone mold, he did play a prominent role in the success of California’s Proposition 8. Obama’s choice of Warren signals that the president-elect is not likely to enter the White House with a progressive gay rights agenda. He was apparently honest when, throughout the campaign, he said he did not support gay marriage.
But I’m surprised he’d look to a conservative such as Warren for this important moment. I guess Rev. Jeremiah Wright was busy that day.
Other prominent guests at Obama’s inauguration will not cause as much controversy. Aretha Franklin, Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma will all perform.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 18th, 2008 and is filed under Barack, Homosexuality, Obama Appointments, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
That olive branch has thorns. OUCH. The Rick Warren pick is not sitting very well with this straight atheist either. I hope the opinions I have read are correct and this is much ado about nothing.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Sure he’s a “nice evangelical”, but if you press him, he still thinks half of his audience is going to burn in hell for eternity. Although if you read his stuff, I have a feeling he doesn’t really think that – he tends to skirt the issue so he doesn’t turn off his “hell-bent” base. Anyone have any info on that? The hell thing is a big issue for me – that issue kind of devides the sheep from the goats in my mind.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Then again, he is one of these young, hip pastors who believes that using the power of government to help the poor through a socialist, planned economy is very Christian-like. Maybe by throwing his weight behind a president that will make the legality of Abortion permanent through his judiciary appointments, he is saying, “well at least they will be socially just abortions, because they will be taxpayer funded.” That’s something Jesus could get behind!
December 18th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I don’t see what the big deal is. He’s giving an invocation not presiding over … well … over anything. In addition, as far as evangelical preachers go he’s quite milquetoast.
In addition, he says equal rights for all and he says he’s worried about churches being forced to preform gay weddings. This is basically the conclusion that many commentators reached in the discussion following prop 8 – that marriage maybe should be only a religious term and civic unions be the only legal nomenclature.
I don’t know too much about this guy but maybe we should play nice with him, he might not be as demonic as some like to make out.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
George – I tend to agree with you. (I’m one of the gays, FYI)
December 18th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
if he is really worried about churches being forced to do gay weddings, he is a moron and should be disqualified for that.
December 18th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
What do you mean rob? That is the only real problem, at least the only problem that I’m willing to acknowledge as being anything but utter stupidity. From what I understand, the concern is that if say the supreme court or something said that gays must be able to get married while the rest of the law remained the same, the structure of it is such that a refusal of a particular church to marry someone could be construed as illegal discrimination.
The astoundingly obvious solution is to modify the law so that this is not an issue. Hence the proposal to have everything be a civil union in the state’s eyes. As far as I can tell, opposition to this idea is what sifts out the true hate-mongers, and hence not something they like to bring up much. Those of us who support sanity in the meantime have been perfectly satisfied to hurl names and squabble with those same people rather than exposing them with this very clear solution.
December 18th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
[...] its face, the Warren pick seems like a slap in the face to the progressive gay movement, and I can understand why this group [...]
December 18th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Rick Warren’s probably an okay guy… but as owner of a major NSC (National Stadium Church) franchise, I’m not placing too much stock in bonafide spirituality. Like Bakker and Swaggert before him, it’s just a matter of time before Warren is found “In flagrante delicto.”
The more these types talk about Hell, the closer they seem to enjoy sitting to the fireplace… ifyaknow whatI’msayin’! ;)
Agnostick
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December 21st, 2008 at 7:59 pm
[...] that don’t fully see America the same way as he does. Nevermind a middle ground. – - via Donklephant: This isn’t going to make gay rights activists happy. Barack Obama has selected evangelical [...]