Rick Warren Pick is an Insult to LGBT Americans

FURTHER UPDATED: John Aravosis has a good run down as to why the Rick Warren pick is detestable over at America Blog. I truly do not know WTF Obama was thinking. To me, Warren exemplifies all that is wrong with religion in this country. The post also shows the ad in support of Proposition 8 that Warren did. I am beyond disgusted.

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UPDATED: Here's a portion of what Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin had to say about the the Rick Warren selection:

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This is the same Rick Warren who recently said that the relationships of his “many gay friends” are no different from child rape, incest or polygamy... Warren himself has acknowledged that the only difference between himself and Focus On the Family’s James Dobson is just “a matter of tone.” So given President-elect Obama’s stated commitment to bringing the country together, it’s hard to fathom the reasoning behind choosing such a divisive figure.

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Huffington Post and many other news outlets are reporting that the Barack Obama transition team has selected Christianist Rick Warren (pictured at left - note that he looks like he is living VERY well and missing few meals while making a living peddling bigotry) to give the inauguration invocation on January 20, 2009. Personally, the selection is equivalent to Obama running a paid television ad telling all LGBT Americans to go f*ck themselves. Warren is nothing more than a less crazy version of Pat Robertson, James Dobson, et al, and his selection suggests that all of Obama's remarks in campaign speeches about equality for gays were aimed at securing our money and our votes but totally insincere. I think I will take the Obama bumper sticker off my car first thing tomorrow morning, in fact. Why didn't Obama pick Fred Phelps while he was at it if this is the type of religious bigot he wants at the inauguration? Here are some highlights from Huffington Post:

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On Wednesday, the transition team announced that Rick Warren, pastor of the powerful Saddleback Church, would give the invocation on January 20th. . . . the announcement is being greeted with deep skepticism in progressive religious and political circles.

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"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 . . . 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."

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And for the gay and lesbian community in particular, the choice is a bitter pill to swallow. "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," read a statement from People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert. "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."

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"Picking Rick Warren to give THE invocation," wrote John Aravosis on AmericaBlog, "is abominable." "Let me get right to the point," Joe Solomnese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a harsh letter to the president-elect, "Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans."

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Have complaints to share? Email Parag Mehta is Obama's LGBT liaison on the transition team - parag.mehta@ptt.gov.