Obama picks Rick Warren for inaugural invocation, gay leaders furious

[NOVA Green]

Personally as an Athiest, I oppose any mixture of church and state. I do believe that unfortunately it will be a long time before my religious beliefs are respected by a majority of the population.

However Rick Warren is actually much more progressive than many of the previous speakers selected to offer the inauguration prayer. I fully understand some of the pain members of the LGBT community must be feeling as a result of Warren's unfortunate statements defending traditional marriage by stating that gay marraiges were almost an equivalent of incent and child abuse. Warren definitely mispoke, and unlike almost all leaders of the evangelical community in the past 20 years does have gay friends and acquaintances and does not "damn people to hell" like many of the fundamentalist preachers of old.

Obama is as fully committed to the cause of gay rights as Clinton, and hopefully this is some strategic posturing that will allow segments of the evangelical community to not challenge a repeal of don't ask don't tell, and maybe make civil unions a nationally protected right. I have no opposition to gay marriages whatsoever, but it will take a generation before we are able to consistenly make gains at the polls against anti- gay marriage ballot iniatives.

[NOVA Green]

Obama is as fully committed to the cause of gay rights as Clinton

Not true, Clinton backstabbed gay activists with Don't Ask Don't Tell while Obama appears willing to overturn it as soon as this economic stuff is out of the way (not immediately, but second term?).  I fully expect it to be overturned eventually although not immediately, but the fact that  Obama wants to focus his political capital on not passing anti-gay measures at the moment makes him superior to Clinton

Interesting observation..... I don't believe that was Clinton's intent, but rather he had overreached and underestimated the backlash amongst the top brass, as well as many Christians who voted for him from different regions.

Personally, there is no question that Clinton had gay friends and was deeply sympathetic towards advancing equal rights for gays. Obama could easily repeal "don't ask don't tell" without any significant loss of political capitol (including my dad who is an evangelical Chritain living in OC who voted for Obama and against Prop .  Not sure why the cool sunglasses icon comes on, I am an Athiest and in favor of gay marriage so please don't get the wrong idea.   

[NOVA Green]

Well, Obama's PR people have indicated they aren't immediately interested in repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell and would prefer to repeal it later on in his term.  His campaign position was that he'd repeal the very law that Bill Clinton supported...

of course his campaign never provided a timeframe.

I hope he does it within the first year..... This may be a unique opportunity while the nation is still in two major wars to throw this issue of patriotism in front of the American public and dare the religious right to challenge it. How can one challenge the rights of LGBT Americans to fight in service of the country openly and without shame?