Rick Warren and the Inauguration Controversy

On the actual day of the inauguration, most people who watched didn't come away thinking about the two preachers who opened and closed the ceremonies. Of Pastor Rick Warren, some remember how creepy it was when he mispronounced Sasha and Malia's names. Some will remember Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights activist, and his humorous benediction that called for justice for all races in rhyme: "we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around...". What many missed though was the outrage that the selection of Rick Warren as invocation speaker sparked in the LGBT. President Obama, as I mentioned in my previous post, made multiple statements affirming his commitment to equal rights for LGBT individuals despite his opposition to gay marriage. Saddleback Church's notoriously anti-gay Rick Warren is an anti-choice preacher who was strong proponent of California's prop. 8 and he has repeatedly equated gay relationships with pedophilia, incest and adultery on video, as seen below.

Anderson Cooper had 3 CNN correspondents on his show Anderson Cooper 360 to debate the issue. One of the three, Hillary Rosen probably best capture the outrage felt at the Obama team's decision to have Rick Warren speak:



The decision was not just politically opportunistic: it was also homophobic. After already suffering the crushing defeat of Prop. 8's passage, the last thing the LGBT community needed was another high profile slap to the face. It was The Rachel Maddow Show's resident pop culturist Kent Jones who had the best quote of the night though:

"Apparently in his invocation Warren is going to be asking God not only to bless America, but also to make it a lot less gay.".

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That's the change America voted for, huh? Needless to say, this incident has caused a fair amount of suspicion and bad blood between the LGBT community and the Obama administration right off the bat. The move was designed to bring Obama political capital; perhaps to give him a "Sister Souljah moment" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment) of sorts. The only way to keep Obama from throwing the LGBT community under the bus for cheap political capital in the future is to generate such a public outcry that it no longer benefits him to do so. Despite our collective hope, the LGBT community will have to be ever-vigilant under the new Obama administration. Once we've forced the Obama administration to respect us as they would any other group, maybe then the LGBT community can achieve its long yearned for progress.