Inaugural pastor Rick Warren is officially not gay
Why couldn’t Barack Obama have at least selected Rich Cizik to deliver his inaugural prayer? Cizik was just drummed out as the head of the National Association of Evangelicals for revealing that, like Obama, he supports civil union (James Dobson had tried to oust Cizik over his environmentalism, but nailed him on the gay issue instead). But as I wrote at The Daily Beast, the man Obama did select to give the benediction, Rick Warren, had this to say a week before election day:
“Here’s an interesting thing: there are about 2% of Americans [who] are homosexual, gay, lesbian people. We should not let two percent of the population determine—to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years. This is not even just a Christian issue, it is a humanitarian and human issue, that God created marriage for the purpose of family, love and procreation. I urge you to support Proposition 8 and to pass that on.”
Sigh.
I wish I was surprised by this, but I’m not because Obama made it clear from the start that he’s a politician without a backbone. He made it clear from the start that he’s a cautious, neoliberal politician who gives vague platitudes without explicitly stating where he stands on “hot button” issues. Obama typically does things such as this to piss off his base just so he can show others that he can stand up to them when necessary. (”He’s so pragmatic,” they say. “He’s trying to bring people together from all political stripes.” “He’s not a president of just liberals but ALL AMERICANS,” blah, blah, blah.) You best believe the press corp are cheering this as another example of Obama spitting in the face of those people who support him. The excuses that his supporters make of this is also not surprising.
This is why I was uneasy about him from the beginning because University of Pennsylvania political scientist Adolph Reed, Jr. had Obama all figured out at the beginning of his career in 1996 when he said:
There’s no excuse for inviting Warren to give invocation. No one is twisting Obama’s arm to do this. He’s doing it because he wants to.
Why couldn’t Obama have exhibited the good sense to stay away from big religion altogether? There are small congregations led by dedicated men and women who are doing amazing humanitarian work to exhibit their faith and morals. I was at the wedding of two wonderful men in one of those churches and the pastor was inspiring to even my religion-battered gay soul.
If Rick Warren had utilized combative language to refer to any other distinct group of law abiding citizens, Obama would have been advised to distance himself. What is wrong with gays and lesbians that Obama would consider reaching out to a man who compares them with pedophiles, polygamists, and worse.
It tempts me to stand up and scream that Rick Warren is a bloated glutton whose pindick is hidden in blobby folds of abdominal fat, and that’s why he’s jealous of gays, whom he perceives are having a lot more fun sex than him. Jealousy and resentment, the two-headed dog of religious drive against gays.