Scott had it first.
Then from The Huffington Post:
On Wednesday, the transition team and Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced that Rick Warren, pastor of the powerful Saddleback Church, would give the invocation on January 20th.
....
"My blood pressure is really high right now," said Rev. Chuck Currie, minister at Parkrose Community United Church of Christ in Portland, Oregon. "Rick Warren does some really good stuff and there are some areas that I have admired his ability to build bridges between evangelicals and mainline religious and political figures... but he is also very established in the religious right and his position on social issues like gay rights, stem cell research and women's rights are all out of the mainstream and are very much opposed to the progressive agenda that Obama ran on. I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage with the president that day."
I'm Grandmère Mimi, and I agree with the Rev. Chuck Currie's message.
UPDATE: Letter sent by Paul, the BB:
Dear Mr. Mehta:
I have noted, via several blogs, that Rick Warren is being asked to give the invocation at the inauguration.
I am sure you will hear many voices, pro and con, about this. Here are my thoughts.
Rick Warren is famous and comes across as affable. He is also, that veneer notwithstanding, not all that different from Don Wildmon or James Dobson. He is a well-known homophobe who equates gay relationships with incest and bestiality. His thinking in this area is ignorant and, because of the influence he wields in conservative circles, harmful to the LGBT community as it undergirds their oppression and continued second-class status among the American citizenry.
He is entitled to his view, of course, but that the Obama team would give a man like this such a platform and validation is a slap in the face to all LGBT Americans.
Make no mistake about it; this is a visceral insult.
I have had to cope with my own sister putting a Yes on Prop 8 sign up on her lawn. She is a conservative evangelical and a Republican, so although this was a gratuitous insult to her own brother it was not surprising.
But to have a Democratic transition team that proclaims "hope" and "change" to sponsor an affable bigot really comes as a surprise, a disappointment, and an insult. We would expect this of a Republican administration catering to the religious right.
I urge President-elect Obama and the transition team to reconsider. You should not be inviting distrust, disappointment, and a feeling of betrayal in such a large segment of your supporters so early on. This hits us where we live, it is an issue of millennia of injustice being perpetuated in our own time, and you will lose huge amounts of good will.
It may be too late. I hope it is not.
Please do not betray your friends and supporters.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
The Rev. Paul E. Strid
Well Göran, not Obama and his advisors. I tried to read Warren's book, "The Purpose-Driven Life", but I could not get through it. I did not like it at all.
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ReplyDeleteI read it at Paul's yesterday. He wrote a letter that shouldn't be missed. I wrote one too, but it is very poor compared to his. They need to know how many are truly offended, heart broken, etc, that this person was chosen to be anywhere near that event!
ReplyDeleteI am just sickened. I did not expect Obama to become the Poster Child for progressive causes, but I also did not expect this knife in the back.
ReplyDeleteApparently "Change We Can Believe In" does not apply to those of us who are tired of the Christianist agenda...
Susan, thanks for pointing me to Paul's letter. It is excellent. I added it in an update to the post.
ReplyDeleteDoxy, this is most disappointing.
I think that everyone who voted for Obama should get a "write-in" vote for someone else to give the invocation. Me? My vote would go for Grandmère Mimi!
ReplyDeleteSigh.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion of Obama has improved since the election--I'm a former Hillaryite who grudgingly voted for him. He seems to be making a lot of sensible decisions and appointing a lot of talented people.
But this--well....I'd be more heart-broken if I'd been a huge Obama supporter from the start.
In the end, Mr. Obama is a shrewd politician, and I suppose this is one of the battles he chose not to fight. Either that, or he has no problem with this fellow and his beliefs. In that case, we've all been snowed.
I see this as a political move, not a statement on where Obama himself stands, except as further proof he meant it when he said he was going to include all the voices. That's going to mean some voices I don't particularly like to hear.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's a political move. I understand that, but Rick Warren? I have a visceral reaction to Rick Warren away from the positive. I can't help it. I must love him, but I don't like him. His attitude and much that he stands for put me off.
ReplyDeleteWell, it does not frankly seem like that good a political move. Obama worked hard to make himself more palatable to white evangelicals, but as I recall the vote analysis he did no better with this group than Kerry did. So what is the purpose of pursuing the support of people who are never going to vote for you while losing the support of people who gave you money and staffed your phone banks?
ReplyDeleteThis should not shock anybody, however. Obama repeatedly announced that he did not support same-sex marriage, and frankly that is just about the same thing as endorsing Proposition 8. You cannot be against same-sex marriage and also be meaningfully against a proposal to eliminate that civil right.
I am not a single-issue voter, but after this year I will be a single-issue campaign contributor and a single-issue campaign volunteer. And that single issue will be my own civil rights. That is the lesson that this California voter took away from Proposition 8 and this election.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...
ReplyDeleteI would have recommended Jim Wallis, still not my favorite, but better than Warren by a mile.
ReplyDeleteI think Obama is terrified of spooking the white people.
I still not ready to say that Obama is nothing more than Bush's clone, but it is a reminder why we should never fall in love with politicians, and that in this country, money rules no matter who's in the Oval Office.
It's also a sign that the political center here is far to the right of most other developed nations.
While Counterlight is probably right that the political center in the US is far to the right of most other developed nations I do not believe it is as far right as the accepted "wisdom" of the beltway pundits would have it. When polled, usually about 2/3 of American agree with clearly progressive positions on issues.
ReplyDeleteBut the power center in this country is way to the right of the people, so that is all we shall hear until power is wrested from their hands.
We have a lot of work ahead of us.
Mimi, you are kind to cite me so extensively.
John Bassett, he's beginning to remind me of Rowan Williams. They're both after the support of conservative evangelicals, and neither will ever have it.
ReplyDeleteMeet the new boss, same as the old boss...
BillyD, I will not go that far.
Counterlight, you are right. We should never fall in love with politicians.
Paul, it was not kindness. It's a far better letter than I could have written, and I wanted my readers to see it.
Very opportunistic of Team Obama, I must say.
ReplyDeleteLet us hope that they do not fall on their sharp, shrewd little sword and triangulate themselves into a pickle.
O.T. - congratulations on your celebrity status, Grandmere. May the best table always be yours.
;>)
May the best table always be yours.
ReplyDeleteDarkblack, the maître d's seem not to have got the memo yet, and I'm still waiting for the call from Oprah.
Tony Campolo: an acceptable, well-known Evangelical (who opposes ssm more, um, conscientiously than I think Obama does . . . but who supports civil unions, and does NOT sink to the kind of smears as does Warren)
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