WTF: Rick Warren to Pray at Inauguration

Rick and Barack having a bonding moment earlier this year

Oh no! Obama has invited homophobe Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church in California to give the invocation at his inauguration on January 20th.

Yep, that's the same Rick Warren who supported Prop 8. I cannot f****** believe this.

Is Obama really that clueless?? I love the guy - so far. But this really, really raises a big red flag in my mind.

The HRC has already fired off an open letter to Obama, which reads in part:

Let me get right to the point. Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans. Our loss in California over the passage of Proposition 8 which stripped loving, committed same-sex couples of their given legal right to marry is the greatest loss our community has faced in 40 years. And by inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table.

I totally agree. This does not bode well for us, guys, if the incoming administration is that insensitive and that callous. What happened to that "CHANGE we can believe in," huh? . . .

People for the American Way had this to say:

Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church’s engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance. He has recently compared marriage by loving and committed same-sex couples to incest and pedophilia. He has repeated the Religious Right’s big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion.

And this guy is going to be part of the inaugural ceremonies for the new President? The movie Groundhog Day comes to mind here for some reason. Scary thought. Think we need to raise a fuss about this one, y'all.

More reactions at these blogs:

Joe.My.God.

Pam's House Blend

Andrew Sullivan

P.S. To date, as far as your Head Trucker knows, Mr. O. has not made a single public comment about the Prop 8 protests. What does that say? Can straight boys ever be trusted to do the right thing? I'm just asking.

Update. In case you need convincing that this is a horribly bad choice, here's Rick Warren advising his flock to support Prop 8; and he doesn't even have his fundamentalist facts right:

Andrew Sullivan, who married his husband Aaron in Massachusetts last year, has this trenchant observation:

Warren is a man who believes my marriage removes his freedom of speech and cannot say that authorizing torture is a moral failing. Shrewd politics, but if anyone is under any illusion that Obama is interested in advancing gay equality, they should probably sober up now. He won't be as bad as the Clintons (who, among leading Democrats, could?), but pandering to Christianists at his inauguration is a depressing omen. More evidence that a civil rights movement needs to realize that no politician can deliver for us what we have to deliver on our own.