Obama picks Rick Warren for inaugural invocation, gay leaders furious

[Tender Branson]

Barack Obama’s choice of a prominent evangelical minister to perform the invocation at his inauguration is a conciliatory gesture toward social conservatives who opposed him in November, but it is drawing fierce challenges from a gay rights movement that – in the wake of a gay marriage ban in California – is looking for a fight.

Rick Warren, the senior pastor of Saddleback Church in southern California, opposes abortion rights but has taken more liberal stances on the government role in fighting poverty, and backed away from other evangelicals’ staunch support for economic conservatism. But it’s his support for the California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that drew the most heated criticism from Democrats Wednesday.

“Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans,” the president of Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese, wrote Obama Wednesday. “[W]e feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination.”

The rapid, angry reaction from a range of gay activists comes as the gay rights movement looks for an opportunity to flex its political muscle. Last summer gay groups complained, but were rebuffed by Obama, when an “ex-gay” singer led Obama’s rallies in South Carolina. And many were shocked last month when voters approved the California ban.

“There is a lot of energy and there’s a lot of anger and I think people are wanting to direct it somewhere,” Solomonese told Politico.

The selection of Warren to preside at the inauguration is not a surprise move, but it is a mirror image of President Bill Clinton’s early struggles with issues of gay rights. Obama has worked, and at times succeeded, to bridge the gap between Democrats and evangelical Christians, who form a solid section of the Republican base.

Obama opposes same-sex marriage, but also opposed the California constitutional amendment Warren backed. In selecting Warren, he is choosing to reach out to conservatives on a hot-button social issue, at the cost of antagonizing gay voters who overwhelmingly supported him.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16693.html

[Prez Duke]

Would the gays rather we have no inaugural invocation? Any religious leader will most likely oppose gay marriage, as it is against most religions. Warren is a good man. I don't know who better Obama could've chosen.

[Aizen]

should have gone with reverend wright imho

[BushArizona]

obama has bad taste in pastors..

[phk]

should have gone with reverend wright imho

He voted for McKinney.

[President Marokai]

It pisses me off, but what is there to do about it? Obama has shown no willingness to make a serious stand on anything so far.

[Lunar]

I don't see why Obama should refuse any religious leader, especially with someone he has a great personal relationship with, to be associated with him just because that guy is an outspoken critic of gay marriage.

As said in this thread, how many prominent religious leaders are in favor of gay marriage?

And need I remind people that Obama himself opposes gay marriage?  Obama opposed prop 8, but still.

Warren seems like a genuine guy who has a constituency (suburban religious types) that Obama is desperate to reach out to in the wake of his reelection.  As someone who spent some number of hours on the No On 8 campaign I am completely unbothered by this decision.  Why shouldn't Obama have his friend do this?

?

[Meeker]

The HRC is just looking for headlines - they're not a serious advocacy group these days. I see nothing wrong with inviting Rick Warren to make the invocation.

[Jake]

Politics is a disgusting game.

[Lief]

should have gone with reverend wright imho

That would have been entertaining at least.

[Eleanor Martins]

How does any of this make any difference in the long run? This is why bullsh**t advocacy groups hinder rather than advance.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

It sets the tone for his presidency. If he's going to spend more time kowtowing to suburban evangelicals who will never support him regardless of what he does instead of constituencies that actually supported him, I for one will be very disillusioned. What's next? No ENDA? No repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell?

[ChrisFromNJ]

This really is a BS move by Obama. There is no excuse here - none. This is called 'reaching across the aisle to your detriment'.

[Gravis Marketing]

Would the gays rather we have no inaugural invocation? Any religious leader will most likely oppose gay marriage, as it is against most religions.

First of all, that's not true. There are plenty of liberal religious leaders who support gay marriage, including in major denominations such as Reform Judaism, the Episcopal Church, and the UCC. They may be a minority, but they are not heretics (although the Episcopal Church has some internal splits on it.) Even many religious leaders who do not perform gay marriages in their churches believe the state should recognize civil marriages between same-sex couples. 

The reason the pick of Warren is particularly irksome at the moment is because Warren was a strong supporter of Proposition 8, which in itself is not surprising, but he defended it this week by saying that Prop 8 was a "free speech" measure that, if it failed, would have criminalized pastors for saying that homosexuality wasn't God's favorite thing in the world.

That's either willfully ignorant or outrageously manipulative, and it's very offensive. If he said "I disagree with gay marriage because blah de blah," gays still would have been upset, but it would have been the normal kind of opposition we just have to get over because that's what you'd expect him to say.

This is like Donnie McClurkin. A symbolic gesture that needlessly insults Obama's gay supporters, but which doesn't carry any significance in the long run. We know Obama isn't going to be a fighter for gay rights. We hope he'll make some changes, though, based on the general tenor of his administration and his allies.

My hope is that this creates a small backlash that he responds to not by replacing Warren (inconceivable) but by appointing that lesbian as Secretary of Labor as many labor activists want. That would be some nice progress. For anyone who says it's tokenism, I say it matters a lot to have an openly gay person appointed to a high position because it has been considered a total block to career advancement in elected office until now and even now, and it would break a glass ceiling.

So that's my two cents. The Rick Warren choice is callous, and it's something I'll get over quickly.

[Gravis Marketing]

It sets the tone for his presidency. If he's going to spend more time kowtowing to suburban evangelicals who will never support him regardless of what he does instead of constituencies that actually supported him, I for one will be very disillusioned. What's next? No ENDA? No repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell?

If he doesn't repeal DADT by 2011, he's in trouble with gay activists. There's a line in the sand there. How could he not make a policy move that has supermajority support among Americans? There's risk-averse, and then there's scared sh**tless...

[Matt Damon™]

I'm firmly for gay marriage but any mainstream religious person he could have picked would have had Rick Warren's views if not worse so I consider this a non-issue.

[ShadowOfTheWave]

This shouldn't even be news. Everyone is always crying about something.

[Beet]

This is Obama being Obama. Saddleback, faith- based initiatives, the vignettes in his book about talking to pro- life religious conservatives... I've always had the sense that he's very serious about the whole reaching out to evangelicals thing. He has invited Focus on the Family along with MoveOn.org to a pre-inauguration forum. It's not just "kowtowing to suburban evangelicals" either, many of the African- Americans who put Obama over the top in his elections are evangelical and it makes sense for them and white evangelicals to make common cause where possible. On the other hand, Obama feels that gays didn't put him over the top, and they are less numerous, so maybe he thinks they're less important. But we'll see.

[All life is a blur of Republicans and meat.]

should have gone with reverend wright imho

Yes.

[riceowl]

what is wrong with this?  I think it's a great idea.

[memphis]

Any religious leader will most likely oppose gay marriage, as it is against most religions.

Obama's own church, the United Church of Christ, supports gay marriage.

[Josh/Devilman88]

I am gay, and it pisses me off that they are making a big deal over this. I mean who give a flying fcuk? Rick Warren don't support gay marriage ok whatever. But he is a good Godly man and I don't think Obama could have picked a better person. If the GLBT leaders are pushing for us to be treated like everyone else then they need to stop trying to sat themself apart from everyone else.

[So the Heroes Fall]

Would the gays rather we have no inaugural invocation? Any religious leader will most likely oppose gay marriage, as it is against most religions. Warren is a good man. I don't know who better Obama could've chosen.

There are more religious leaders that oppose rape than gay marriage.

[Lunar]

Besides, isn't the entirety of Obama's argument for Rev. Wright that you're not responsible for everything your priest says?

[Senator Ben]

I think Rick Warren is a great pick.  I was very impressed by him during the Forum, and I like a lot of his causes.