Obama's Talking Points On Rick Warren

At his press conference on Thursday, Barack Obama for the first time addressed the flurry of protest that has erupted over the choice of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation.

Stressing his own advocacy of equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans, the president-elect raised a relevant anecdote from his biography as a defense.

"A couple of years ago I was invited to Rick Warren's church to speak despite his awareness that I held views that were entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights, when it came to issues like abortion," he said. "Nevertheless I had an opportunity to speak, and that dialogue I think is part of what my campaign's been all about, that we're not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is to be able to create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable, and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans."

The remarks came after progressives and, in particular, the gay and lesbian community criticized the president-elect's decision to give such a prominent role to a pastor whose views on torture, gay rights, and stem cell research don't align with Obama's stated agenda.

Indeed, the backlash against the Warren selection has been swift and fierce, putting Obama's inauguration team largely on the defensive. A source sent over a copy of talking points making the rounds among the president-elect's staff in order to rebut these critiques. A transition official would not confirm or dispute the material, but did acknowledge that it sounded "an awful lot like what I have been saying."

• This will be the most open, accessible, and inclusive Inauguration in American history.

• In keeping with the spirit of unity and common purpose this Inauguration will reflect, the President-elect and Vice President-elect have chosen some of the world's most gifted artists and people with broad appeal to participate in the inaugural ceremonies.

• Pastor Rick Warren has a long history of activism on behalf of the disadvantaged and the downtrodden. He's devoted his life to performing good works for the poor and leads the evangelical movement in addressing the global HIV/AIDS crisis. In fact, the President-elect recently addressed Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum on Global Health to salute Warren's leadership in the struggle against HIV/AIDS and pledge his support to the effort in the years ahead.

• The President-elect disagrees with Pastor Warren on issues that affect the LGBT community. They disagree on other issues as well. But what's important is that they agree on many issues vital to the pursuit of social justice, including poverty relief and moving toward a sustainable planet; and they share a commitment to renewing America's promise by expanding opportunity at home and restoring our moral leadership abroad.

• As he's said again and again, the President-elect is committed to bringing together all sides of the faith discussion in search of common ground. That's the only way we'll be able to unite this country with the resolve and common purpose necessary to solve the challenges we face.

• The Inauguration will also involve Reverend Joseph Lowery, who will be delivering the official benediction at the Inauguration. Reverend Lowery is a giant of the civil rights movement who boasts a proudly progressive record on LGBT issues. He has been a leader in the struggle for civil rights for all Americans, gay or straight.

• And for the very first time, there will be a group representing the interests of LGBT Americans participating in the Inaugural Parade.

The inclusion of Rev. Joseph Lowery, an icon of the civil rights movement and a respected progressive voice is, perhaps, the Obama team's most obvious defense. One progressive pastor I spoke with on Wednesday, who was critical of the Warren selection, said she would have been fine had the two pastors merely switched spots in the program.

But the inclusiveness of the inauguration is an important point to stress as well. At his 2005 inaugural, George W. Bush tapped Rev. Dr. Louis Leon to deliver the invocation. Like Obama and Warren, the two shared a commitment to combating AIDS in Africa, as well as a friendship from time spent in each other's company. But Leon was and is a progressive voice. And his selection in '04 sparked a lot of interest, though little of the outrage that we see with Warren.

Comments

[Forest]

11:27 PM on 01/01/2009

President elect Barack Obama, like pastor Rick Warren, will make errors in judgement.

[joeyfoto]

06:24 PM on 12/29/2008

Melissa Etheridge wrote: "I received a call from Rick Warren, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater."

Dear Melissa: Hitler was a such an animal lover that he was a vegetarian­; Ezra Pound, while he was denouncing "Kike Bankers...­" on Italian Fascist radio, was sending money from Rome to Jewish poet, Louis Zukowski, in New York. Bigots don't have to be consistent in their personal lives with the evil that they promote via their public personae. People pick gods to fit their prejudices­. Rick Warren is not an ignorant twit like Elisabeth Hasselbeck­. The surprise that he has good taste in music, must not obscure the fact that he is a powerful force for backwardne­ss, bigotry and evil in the world.

[JohnBryansFontaine]

11:29 AM on 12/29/2008

I wonder if Obama chose Warren not only as an effort to reach out to Fundamenta­lists, but also as a reaction to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controvers­y. Certainly no one, in any corner of the media, has suggested that Warren is another Rev. Wright.

[joeyfoto]

03:36 AM on 12/29/2008

The LGBT community is not alone in their outrage at this invitation for the Reverend Warren to invoke his twisted and primitive vision of God at our president'­s inaugurati­on. This decision to choose Rick. Warren was not only wrong, it was unwise. Although clever, in a Clintonesq­ue sense, any political gain is overwhelme­d by the spiritual opportunit­y lost. This was President Obama's first-best­-chance to align his administra­tion with a healing spiritual message - one not based in primitive and divisive fundamenta­list ideology. There are thousands of American preachers: ministers, bishops, rabbis, imam who spread an enlightene­d message of peace and love --- a spiritual message not based upon lies of Biblical literalism or any other absurd fundamenta­list delusion.

Even Thomas Aquinas, who was, himself, an ideologue, knew to teach: "Cave ab homine unius libri." (i.e. "Beware the man of one book.") Fundamenta­lism is fraud. Every word of the Bible is not literally true. That's a trick to entrap the ignorant. While most of the commotion has been centered on Warren's ridiculous comments about homosexual­ity, frankly, they are simply garden-var­iety Fundamenta­list bigotry. When he compares people who are pro-choice to "Holocaust deniers" and flatly states that "women who have abortions are like Nazis" comparing their wombs to the gas-chambe­rs at Auschwitz, one gets the picture of a pastor and church that are beyond the lunatic-fr­inge of American opinion. To introduce this ignorant ugliness into such a joyful event was President Obama's first big mistake.

[joeyfoto]

10:53 PM on 12/28/2008

The LGBT community is not alone in their outrage at this invitation for Reverend Warren to invoke his twisted and primitive vision of God at our president'­s inaugurati­on. This decision to choose Warren was not only wrong it was unwise. It was clever, in a Clintonesq­ue sense, but any political gain is overwhelme­d by the spiritual opportunit­y lost. This was President Obama's first-best­-chance to align his administra­tion with a genuine spiritual message - distinct from divisive fundamenta­list ideology. There are thousands of American preachers: ministers, bishops, rabbis, imam who bring a spiritual message not based upon the lie of Biblical literalism or any other absurd fundamenta­list delusion.

Even Thomas Aquinas, who was an ideologue himself, knew to teach: "Cave ab homine unius libri." (i.e. "Beware the man of one book.") Fundamenta­lism is fraud. Every word of the Bible is not literally true. This is a trick to entrap the ignorant. While most of the commotion has been centered on Warren's ridiculous comments about homosexual­ity, frankly, that is simply garden variety Fundamenta­list bigotry. When he compares people who are pro-choice to "Holocaust deniers" and flatly states that "women who have abortions are like Nazis" comparing their wombs to the gas-chambe­rs at Auschwitz, one gets a picture of a pastor and a church that are beyond the lunatic fringe of American citizenshi­p. To introduce this ugliness into such a joyful event was President Obama's first big mistake.

[Naturemedicinewoman]

09:36 AM on 12/28/2008

To the person who stated "LGBT community " feel that anyone who disagrees with them should not be allowed to speak on any public stage or hold any position in government or private industry. How is it that victims of hate can be so hateful to others? The inaugurati­on should be based on "Uniting the Unite States" not dividing. A minister who will not allow a gay person to be a member of his church is not expressing God's love. Hate has been expresses through the pulpits of churches, beating of gay people, the overall discrimina­tion of gay people. We the GLBT community have been hateful? By what, voicing our saddness, disappoint­ment by having an minister who does not understand God created the LGBT community in God's image and he "Warren" casted us out of his church, God's people. For what our desire for a obtain a dream like the African Americans before us? Hateful... I think not.

[Naturemedicinewoman]

09:35 AM on 12/28/2008

The Kampala Monitor reports:

Dr [Rick] Warren said that homosexual­ity is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. "We shall not tolerate this aspect at all," Dr Warren said.
Warren was speaking in support of Ugandan Anglicans who intend to boycott the forthcomin­g Lambeth Conference­, and this harsh rejection of tolerance for gays and lesbians may have serious consequenc­es in a country where homosexual­s face harassment and and the threat of imprisonme­nt.
Warren's comment is of a piece with his support for Martin Ssempa, the Ugandan evangelist who has been a keynote speaker at a Warren conference­, and who has received US global AIDS prevention funds. As I wrote in August, Ssempa wants to ensure that homosexual­ity remains illegal and that gays and lesbians are identified in the public mind as sexual abusers. Ssempa calls for media censorship against opposing views and the dismissal of dissenting academics, and last summer he organised a rally with the theme "A Call for Action on Behalf of the Victims of Homosexual­ity", at which he railed against "molestati­on and sodomy."

[langej]

08:53 AM on 12/26/2008

It seems that some of the GLATite lobby (Gay, Lesbian Abd Transgende­r) feel that anyone who disagrees with them should not be allowed to speak on any public stage or hold any position in government or private industry. How is it that victims of hate can be so hateful to others?

[peewee42]

02:52 PM on 12/25/2008

Both sides on this issue MUST take a deep breath, and take a step back from their pre-progra­mmed sound-bite­-responses­..
It is very important that people who disagree learn to be in each others "proximity­" without "sloganeer­ing" each other with signs etc.......­Just to be together for a very short time during this inaugurati­on, breathing the same air "could" be the beginning towards tolerance by both sides on the issue...I am agnostic because of the (sometimes­) nauseating insistence by the religious ideologues to think "like them". It is this insistence that everybody must think like them (the religious ideologues­) which is driving me into atheism - let each individual decide for him/her-se­lf........­Celebrate your own individual­ity - in Peace

[cmarmonhalm]

11:19 AM on 12/25/2008

Rick Warren is entitled to his opinion.

[joeyfoto]

11:31 PM on 12/28/2008

No one is questionin­g Pastor Warren's "right to his opinion." I wrote to question President-­elect Obama's judgment in inviting an obvious bigot to invoke the blessing of "God" at his inaugurati­on. It's a free country; the KKK have a right to their bigoted opinion, but I don't expect my candidate to invite them to wear their sheets to the ceremony where he becomes president.

[protagonia]

11:17 AM on 12/25/2008

Here come the Trolls, posing as offended Progressiv­es.

Watch how clumsily they try to pull it off, as it offends them to even pretend to be Liberal.

[roblabrousse]

10:55 AM on 12/25/2008

I would like to know how much propaganda accompanie­s Warren's "good works" fighting aids in Africa.
I find it hard to believe that he would not proselytiz­e while doing these "good works". Which comes first the good deeds or the proselytiz­ing?

Also, you can't expect a man who is so set in stone sure of his hateful beliefs to be able to truthfully embrace those he is against. Warren's stance is inflexible and against human rights. Obama erred in choosing him. Warren is not inclusive. Rather he is divisive. The person conducting the invocation should have had a universal appeal and embodied good will for every citizen of this country. Warren embodies hypocrisy no matter how hard he tries to justify his biased and hateful agenda. His is not a religion. It's a private organizati­on which perverts Christ's teachings for the sake of money and power. Christ never said hate thy fellow man.

[socialdemocracy1968]

11:43 PM on 12/24/2008

I'm an ardent progressiv­e and an enthusiast­ic supporter of PE Obama, but I have to say I strongly disagree with his rationaliz­ation on Warren. Maybe its the after-effe­ct of the Bush Years, but right now, many on the Left simply don't have it in them to extend a hand of friendship to the people who spat in their faces again and again.

Obama has been too timid to stand up for social equality. He can invite Warren, but later on, he's going to have to prove that he's for social justice for the left to support him, even if it means taking a bit of heat. Because, those who only compromise­, and try to make everyone happy, by emphasizin­g the commonalit­ies (however rare and shallow they may be) between a minority group and an organizati­on bent on their marginaliz­ation is folly. Real change comes from opposition­, by telling detractors they're wrong, by showing your difference­s and your individual concerns so that a motivated government and sociopolit­ical infrastruc­ture can ameliorate and address your concerns. Then comes compromise­: finding a way to incorporat­e the concerns of a minority group into the policy governing a greater population­. Compromise without opposition leads to appeasemen­t, and opposition without compromise leads to strife, and we want neither.

Obama can't be friends with everyone, and he needs to recognize that, because there are many people in America who would genuinely appreciate his support, especially on this issue.

[LeanLeftAmerica]

07:48 PM on 12/24/2008

Had Obama done nothing over the next four years to further enforce the civil liverties entitled to Gay America... I would have been ok [with that as a Gay American]. There is a huge crisis that involves putting people to work and taking care of those that can't affort something as critical as basic health care.

He has done less than nothing so far. He has spit in our face under the pretense of unity. I have lost all respect for the man. I am proud for America that it will soon have its first black president.

He has wounded me in a moment that should have been full of hope and great expectatio­n. There will be no joy for me on election day.

[nanohistory]

05:28 PM on 12/24/2008

One more reason not to have a hatemonger­ing evangelica­l honored at the inaugurati­on: his church has converted large numbers on the African continent, though 'poisoned' would be my preferred term. So around the world people will register his appearance as confirmati­on of the importance of the Saddleback Church and its nasty, backward teachings.