Rick Warren Fall Out Continues

UPDATED: My friend Lyndon has an excellent post over at My Two Cents that does a great analysis of the message Obama is sending by selecting a Christo-fascist like Rick Warren. Here is a highlight:

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When Warren or anyone else for that matter, finds fault with a group of individuals because they don't fit into his stringent, bigoted views of lifestyle and perceived religious dogma, that can only give the perpetrators of the December 13 attack [the svage rape and brutalization of a lesbian in the San Francisco area] and others the attitude and view, that it is not only alright to carry out such an act, but is acceptable to do so "because they are different".

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As noted last night on this blog and others, including Pam's House Blend, Mike Rogers was on Hardball and went after the Warren apologists and did a great job of it. It increasingly seems that Warren is attempting to do damage control - Lisa Derrick's post, "Saddleback Site Removes Anti-Gay Statements, Warren Lies to Congregation looks at some of Warren's efforts. I believe that it is important that the scrutiny of his anti-gay rhetoric - and general intolerance to all who are not fellow Kool-Aid drinkers - remains ratcheted up. In today's Washington Post, Richard Cohen has a column that likewise looks at the negative fall out that continues from Obama's selection of Warren to give the inaugural invocation. It also suggests that Obama may not have the guts to do what's right when it comes to equality under the law for LGBT Americans. Here are some highlights:

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Not that he was planning to attend, but Barack Obama should know that my sister's inauguration night party -- the one for which she was preparing Obama Punch -- has been canceled. The notice went out over the weekend, by e-mail and word of mouth, that Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation had simply ruined the party. Warren is anti-gay, and my sister, not to put too fine a point on it, is not. She's gay. She is -- or was -- a committed Obama supporter.

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"I'm opposed to redefinition of a 5,000-year definition of marriage," Warren told Beliefnet.com's Steve Waldman. "I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage." Waldman asked, "Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?" "Oh, I do," said Warren.

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There you have the thinking of the man Obama has chosen above all other religious figures to represent him in this most solemn moment. He likens my sister's relationship -- three children, five grandchildren, so loving as to be envied and so conventional as to be boring -- to incest or polygamy.

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But the real problem has nothing to do with ministers and everything to do with Obama's inability or unwillingness to be a moral leader. Sooner or later, he just might have to stand for something. This was apparent to me almost a year ago when I reported that Obama's church, the Trinity United Church of Christ, had given a major award to Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam.

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Now we have a repeat of that episode. This time it is not Obama's preacher who has decided to honor a bigot, it is Obama himself. And, once again, we get the same sort of rationalizations. . . . Sounds nice. But what we do not "hold in common" is the dehumanization of homosexuals. What we do not hold in common is the belief that gays are perverts who have chosen their sexual orientation on some sort of whim. What we do not hold in common is the exaltation of ignorance that has led and will lead to discrimination and violence.

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Finally, what we do not hold in common is the categorization of a civil rights issue -- the rights of gays to be treated equally -- as some sort of cranky cultural difference. For that we need moral leadership, which, on this occasion, Obama has failed to provide. For some people, that's nothing to celebrate.