by Frank James
Rev. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church defended himself against criticism that President-elect Barack Obama shouldn't have chosen him to deliver the invocation at his inaugural next month, saying he's not anti-gay.
An excerpt from the Associated Press:
LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Under fire for opposing gay marriage, influential evangelical pastor Rick Warren said Saturday that he loves Muslims, people of other religions, Republicans and Democrats, and he also loves "gays and straights."
The 54-year-old pastor and founder of Saddleback Church in Southern California told the crowd of 500 that it's unrealistic to expect everyone to agree on everything all the time.
"You don't have to see eye to eye to walk hand in hand," said Warren.
Warren also defended President-elect Barack Obama's invitation that he give the invocation at the Jan. 20 inauguration in the keynote speech he delivered at the Muslim Public Affairs Council's annual convention in Long Beach.
Obama's choice of Warren earlier this week sparked outcry from gay rights and other liberal groups, who said choosing such an outspoken opponent of gay marriage was tantamount to endorsing bigotry.
"Three years ago I took enormous heat for inviting Barack Obama to my church because some of his views don't agree (with mine)," he said. "Now he's invited me."
Warren said he prays for the same things for Obama that he prays for himself: integrity, humility and generosity.
This obviously won't stop the tempest surrounding Obama's choice of Warren. There will be noisy anti-Warren protesters along the inauguration parade route, that's certain.
But it won't be Obama's version of gays-in-the-military in terms of distracting attention from his agenda in the first few months of his presidency. The economy's dire state looms too large for that to be the case.
A lot of commentary about Obama's transition has been about how Clintonesque so much of his transition has been, with so many Clinton Administration people populating his cabinet and senior staff picks.
Warren provides something of an anti-Clinton moment actually. It's definitely apposite to Clinton's gays-in-the-military initiative.
But there is still something Clintonesque about it. It has the feel of Clinton's Sister Souljah move, a political play against a key constituency in order to reach voters beyond the base.
Comments
Hey, I'd pay good money to see Rick Warren walking hand-in-hand with another guy!
Posted by: Jonathan Kuyper | December 21, 2008 3:51 PM
I have written before but I have to write now...
The man has repeatedly called gays and lesbians on par with pedophiles.
Can you think what it would be like if the President of the United States picked, as the representative of moral and religious authority a man who has driven home a point that you were a pedophile based on not a single fact or truth...besides what is in his own head.
He did it again on Ann Curry's interview...
He said gays just like pedophiles just need to control their urges and not be gay.
Is this 1963?
Of course if it were 1963 he would also be preaching the popular belief that interracial marriage was unnatural and maybe even unholy...
How would Barack feel about that pick...
perhaps when his mother was living in a neighborhood that strongly bought into the idea that interracial fraternization was an offense... a neighborhood perhaps she had to walk down...at night...daily.
How would he feel then when the President at the time picked a man who was vocally and aggressively preaching that what his mother was doing as an adult with another adult she was in love with...was on par with beastiality and pedophilia?
...as she walked through neighborhoods where they believed that.
How would he feel if he had walked through those same neighborhoods as the product of that relationship, as he fought and was campaigning for that President...in neighborhoods that believed that, based on nothing but the word of some social conservatives? Neighborhoods he probably should not have been going.
I did that...
for him...in backwoods towns all over New Hampshire...
for 2 YEARS
.I was one of the first of a handful of people doing it for him in New Hampshire the day after he announced.
I fought daily for him for 2 years.
I gave up more than he will ever know to get him elected.
and I am gay.
There were a handful of times as I debated at these homes past the pitbull, or the fence... with people who by their language I can tell you were not open to a black president...but I pushed them...and myself...and on occasion you would see it...They started to realize something about me... and there was absolutely no doub in these darkened corners of backwoods New England...that if they knew they could have gotten away with it...it is not a stretch to say they would not have disgustedly thought twice at putting a gun to the back of my head and blowing this fagg0ts head off... and burying me somewhere in those woods ...if they could have gotten away with it...that look as I was fighting for our first black President. but i kept going to more houses because it was that important.
this is not about marriage...
it is about a man whose rhetoric spreads theories about a minority population based on no facts (besides his "for 5000 years marriage was"... well for 8000 years slavery was pushed okay by societies including the Bible)
This choice ...this reaching across the aisle and "inclusivity"...by including those who exclude and insult...
back in the 60's...if the President said that after he chose an anti-interracial marriage preacher...
Barack would have had a lot of four letter words for that President.
and my guess is... may never support him again.
Thank you
Sincerely
Posted by: dl | December 21, 2008 4:16 PM
But he still hates non-Christians and would like to strip me of my civil rights because I don't believe in his sky friend.
Posted by: Cheryl | December 21, 2008 4:44 PM
Let's face it Rick Warren is a bigoted, divisive character who engenders hatred and negativity in many people and calls it religion. Fine for him to be heard. Fine for the Nazi's and the Ku Klux Klan to be heard. Fine for white supremacists to be heard. That is free speech. But he is being elevated in a way that adds legitimacy to his godless notion that he and his fellow so-called christian fundamentalists are somehow to be respected for their invalid views. Please!!!
Posted by: Jim Dandy | December 21, 2008 4:46 PM
Barney Frank should go back in the closet and lock himself up
Posted by: joseph | December 21, 2008 5:13 PM
I'd be willing to bet that the same people that found Reverand Wright okey dokey are the same that are bent out of shape over rev. Rick Warren. This would be the anti-Christian crowd.
Posted by: Kathy | December 21, 2008 5:21 PM
I am extemely diappointed and dismayed at the choice of Warren to give the opening prayer.
This is a honor and should not have been awarded to someone who does not believe in my equal rights.
When Warren states he "loves gays" how does he back that statement up. He was against Prop 8 in California.
I have struggled to long to have people who diminish me and my rights a vocal voice.
I have lost hope with the incoming administration.
Talk is cheap...actions speak louder than words.
So again, I am treated like a second class citizen.
Posted by: William B. Butler Jr. | December 21, 2008 6:09 PM
warren is an evil, vulgar, rabid gaybasher...
only suicidal fools walk "hand in hand" with their arch enemies
NOTHING can ever defend this outrageous and offensive choice!
fyi
alicia banks
http://aliciabanks.blogspot.com/
Posted by: alicia banks | December 21, 2008 7:04 PM
Does anyone listen to REPREHENSIBLE DEMBHOLE BARNEY'play-with-my-schmeckle-and-youse-gets-a-big-bailout'FRANK??? Sum banking chairman huh who thinks his assetts aren't a government subsidy - just pkaydough for various male poristitutees???!!!
Posted by: Zyskandar A. Jaimot | December 21, 2008 7:32 PM
I'll never use Trib. comment section again too complicated and site poor run.
Posted by: tom | December 21, 2008 10:22 PM
This is ridiculous! Rick Warren doesn’t "Hate" anyone, and he’s definitely not a bigot. Why can't someone have a different viewpoint than you without being slandered? It’s amazing to me that the same people who cry and moan about their "Civil Rights" are the same people who would love to take them away from other people. By the way, Jewish and Muslim people believe homosexuality is wrong too. Why don’t they get the same amount of F bombs and hate conversations? But even putting aside your "Religious" views, the facts are the facts. Regardless of what you want them to be. The medical statistics speak for themselves. And there are tons of them. Here's one from cdc.gov....
Estimated # of HIV/AIDS Cases, in 2006
Male-to-male sexual contact -17,465
High-risk heterosexual contact - 4,152
And most of the "High Risk" is believed to stem from homosexual activity.
Posted by: John Buss | December 22, 2008 1:58 AM
I hope everyone now has awakened to the fact that the primary season was merely a gang fight among the Ivy League's frats and sorority kids.
Posted by: Instant runoff 2nd choice ballot for a 3rd party without risk of repugnican rule | December 22, 2008 12:04 PM
I was against Rick Warren giving the invocation, but then I remembered that I did not know any of the pastors participated in any of the previous inaugurations. I had never given any thought to who should do this since I am not religious. This decision has absolutely no affect on my life and for the people who say Obama is elevating Warren, please. Warren is already the most famous pastor in the U.S. because of his own books and works.
His church feeds the homeless daily and gives money to AIDS causes. The Democratic Party is a big tent and many evangelicals and other Christians who read Warren also voted for Obama.
Symbolism is for losers. Right-wing evangelicals lost this election and a more moderate evangelical is being given a token symbolic role. Are any of these crazy Christians being given policy roles? Have they been put in the Cabinet? No.
A lot of liberals laughed that McCain could not choose a VP who was even tepidly pro-choice, yet Democrats have their own litmus tests. Now they have expanded that test to preachers at a freakin inauguration. What's next? Should we ask Aretha Franklin and Yo Yo Ma how they would have voted on Prop 8 and give em the boot?
The way some people have acted like this is a betrayal makes me wonder if liberals are really as dumb as conservatives.
Posted by: Lois | December 22, 2008 1:02 PM
the problem is Rick Warren uses these symbols of honor and of moral ownership...to influence legislation against ...
and no, rev Wright also would not be someone "okay" for this prayer...this moral certification role at what may end up being the most watched event in the history of the world.
Warren uses every acknowledgment he gets to influence legislation and uses horiffically bigotted ideology under the guise of religios freedom (women in Iran anyone) to influence legislative policy...
i care less about gay marriage
I care about Obama picking a man who uses these acknowledgments to influence legislation against the very people who got obama elected.
Posted by: dl | December 22, 2008 1:35 PM
Aaah, the dulcet tones of "tolerance" from the left. It warms the heart.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspirator | December 23, 2008 10:44 AM
Rick Warren and his ilk have declared war on gays an lesbians. The battle will be fought in the Supreme Courts of America. Already some states are finding bans to gay marriage unconstitutional and discriminatory. Prop 8 in CA and Prop 102 in AZ and other hateful legislation will eventually fall. Separation of Church and State will be upheld!
Posted by: hal9thou | December 25, 2008 8:44 AM
Recent gay news:
Gay Predators on the Loose–Again!
They’re crawling out of the woodwork again!
That’s somewhat misleading since gays haven’t crawled back under the woodwork for decades now, ever since they started feeling empowered by various state and federal legislation after they went activist following the Stonewall Riots in 1969.
They even forced the American Psychiatric Association to change its age-old designation of homosexuality from a sick aberration to simply a variation on the norm.
(See dozens of articles on this site relating to the gay scourge on society by entering “homosexuality” in the Search box.)
Well, they’re in the news. Again.
On Long Island, New York, one of their ilk has been caught after preying on an unknown number of high school students.
Suffolk County cops apprehended previously convicted gay sex offender and HIV-infected Robert Musmacker of Oceanside with his pants almost literally down and with a 16 year old Brentwood boy in Musmacker’s car: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-libren0131,0,6967577.story.
After a preliminary investigation into 36 year old Musmacker’s background and his student contacts at Brentwood secondary schools, police estimated that as many as 20 students may have been “involved” with him and exposed to the HIV virus.
Brentwood Superintendent of Schools, Donna Jones, indicated that Musmacker “had been known to prey on victims as young as 12,” but did not disclose how she knew or what, if anything, she did about it.
Musmacker’s previous conviction was for sodomizing an 11 year old relative. He served 6 years and was released in 1998: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-lisusp316018468jan31,0,6396200.story. His latest victims may have “met” him via the Internet.
Meanwhile, out in the Midwest in the Chicago area–demonstrating that homosexual predators are hardly confined to New York–a 53 year old teacher at MacArthur Middle School in Prospect Heights stands accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.
Richard Vos, a computer teacher and advisor to the school’s computer club, allegedly met the boy first when the boy was 13 and their “meetings” went on for a year and half...
(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)
Posted by: Gene Lalor | February 1, 2009 5:09 PM