Why?
It is appalling that President-elect Barack Obama would invite California Pastor Rev. Rick Warren, an ardent supporter of Prop 8 and someone who is opposed to the equality of LGBT Americans, to give the invocation at his inauguration.
Demand President-elect Obama to immediately rescind this invitation.
Would President-elect Obama invite someone to give the invocation who supported eliminating the civil rights of a minority other than the LGBT community? Of course he wouldn’t!
This is a slap in the face to the millions of LGBT Americans who supported his historic candidacy.
TAKE ACTION: Sign EQCA’s petition to President-elect Obama. Ask him to immediately rescind this despicable invitation.
www.eqca.org/actioncenter
Comments
For example, would Lincoln have had people who supported slavery in his cabinet? Would LBJ have had people against the Civil Rights Movement in his inauguration?
I think we can invite those who are willing to work to address climate change, and AIDS in Africa, and poverty at home, even if they are not yet enlightened when it comes to the GLBT community or preemptive war.
The real problem here, if there is one, would be that Obama doesn't support gay marriage and instead supports strong civil unions. But if that's a problem, it's a problem with Obama, not with the person he picks for his invocation. As long as Obama doesn't change his policies in order to get Rick Warren to come, it's a political victory. Obama gets Warren to endorse his policies as a whole despite certain points of difference. As a politician, he needs to build a coalition, and evangelicals need to be part of that coalition wherever they're willing.
Personally, my problem isn't with religious leaders like Rick Warren who take stands on so-called "values issues" which I don't share. The problem, as I see it, starts with people like the current pope and many like-minded American Catholic leaders who have made public pronouncements in recent years. They don't just say that contraception is wrong or that homosexuality is an objective disorder, they try to browbeat Catholic politicians and even Catholic voters to go along with them. They say that Catholic politicians who don't share all of their views shouldn't receive communion, they say that voters who vote for the wrong candidate may be endangering their salvation.
I think it's worth considering the position of conservative Catholic leaders here, because it helps to put Rick Warren in perspective. Even if it were politically feasible to have a Catholic Cardinal perform the invocation, it would never happen. Pope Benedict would never allow his church to be seen to endorse a pro-choice politician. He'd rather Catholics thought they were putting their souls at risk supporting Obama. The fact that Rick Warren isn't taking that kind of a hard line makes him just the person to invite.
In order to demonstrate that these issues don't need to divide Americans, Obama needed someone conservative enough to disagree with him on "values issues" but moderate enough not to let that disagreement stand in the way. In that sense, Rick Warren is the perfect choice.
"Homosexualism" is after all merely a social issue rather than a matter of human rights. Right? Wrong.
Hilary Rosen on CNN said it best: they clearly *do not* get it.