Rick Warren Announcement Is Slap In The Face To GLBTQ Army

So far Barack Obama has been pretty smart in making choices for his cabinet and his inaugural festivities. A rare misstep, the choice of Pastor Rick Warren for his Inaugural, is a serious one; and it should put the GLBTQ community on alert about whether or not Obama really has our back.

For the uninformed, Rick Warren was before the election, and continues to be now, a serious opponent of GLBTQ civil rights. He was extremely anti-gay in his sermons and statements related to the California Prop 8 measure, and has continued to purposefully blur the line in his statements about Prop 8. He even went as far as to express concern that the State of California would restrict his ability to speak out in the pulpit against gay rights, even though there never has been a measure that has even addressed the issue -- sticking strictly to the issuance of marriage licenses alone.

Barack Obama, in choosing the political route by inviting Warren to participate in his inaugural festivities, is delivering a serious "I don't give a crap about you" to the GLBTQ community that backed his message of change. He is basically forsaking the Change mantra by co-opting the religious moral Right crowd, in a shrewd attempt to disarm them. The problem is, now that he has done this, an entire political block that was squarely in his corner during the election will no longer trust him to represent them going forward. In effect, he has put out the signal that discrimination against the GLBTQ community, and lies by those who continue to espouse the anti-gay rhetoric of the Right, are okay and should be allowed in his administration.

Well, I'm sorry Mr. Obama. You are wrong on this one. Choosing anti-gay Rick Warren is like throwing a cocktail in the face of every member of the GLBTQ Army that you so delicately recruited to join your cause during the election. You have just made it incredibly harder for us to call for fairness, simply by validating the Right's biggest wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. Sure, you've disarmed many of the people who thought you were too liberal to begin with, and therefore by picking Warren to give your invocation you have given them less ammo to throw at you. You have to admit, though, sir, that you did this for politically expedient reasons, and really didn't consider the need to help guarantee basic equal rights and the core message that it means for all people by being principled in your choices.

No, Mr. Obama, you have sent a shiver up the spine of every GLBTQ American who believed that you might actually be the voice and actor of real change. What you have proven with this choice, is that unifying hateful people into your tent is more important than protecting those of us who helped put up that tent in the first place. You've hurt more than our feelings, sir. You've kicked us when we were down by supporting the enemy. The GLBTQ Army is becoming more militant, and we won't forget this shot to the gut.

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Comments

[Roelof]

Girls, please.

Does any one remember who gave the invocation at the last inauguration? How about the one before that? And before that?

There are many slices to the political pie, some of them symbolic and some of them quite meaty. This is a symbolic slice that Obama has decided to give to the evangelicals, to make them feel included in this moment during his presidency. A more substantial, meaty slice -- say, including sexual orientation in federal hate crimes legislation -- is likely to come the way of the GLBT community later.

No point in queening out over something that really, seriously means absolutely nothing. Everyone is going to be so busy looking at Michelle's dress that they won't hear a thing Rick Warren says.

Pick your battles more wisely.

[Skepticat]

If the worse slap you get is 10 minutes of Rev Warren at an invocation - then I suspect the next 4 years will be a big improvement over the last 8. The GLBT folks as well as blacks, hispanics, unionized workers, the educated, the pro-choice, the urbanized were all shortchanged because the Repubs could depend on their religious base - and selectively throw groups under the bus to appease them. The religious right however is no longer quite as monolithic and their membership are hurting in this recession-­depression as much as anyone else. If they don't feel as threatened by change some of the membership just might not feel as compelled to oppose GLBT issues as actively.

[SiberianRat]

Apparently my first comment got booted by the censors, so I'll just say that you don't speak for all of us, Scott, and I think posts like this are very unhelpful and pretty off base.

[Chis1283]

Couldn't agree with you more...people are reading far too much into Obama's pick of Warren. Please wait to judge Obama based on his more substantive actions like if he supports legislation helping the gay community, or whether he supports legal initiatives aimed at invalidating discriminatory laws as a violation of equal protection.

[scottsbigmouth]

Sorry Chis1283: I don't agree. When you are President of The United States, EVERY ACTION is substantive. Even those that some people consider to be nothing. Many in the GLBTQ community consider this first misstep (and yes, it is) to be an indicator of a climate of hypocrisy that has dogged us under Clinton. He gave us all kinds of lip service and we just marched along with him, in my case as a staffer. This time Obama needs to understand how deeply he has hurt the GLBTQ community that helped elect him at such a huge level. GLBTQ supporters were one of the largest groups to go nearly lock-step in the election for Obama and other Dems. If he doesn't actually practice what he preaches, we will act to correct the behavior.

[scottsbigmouth]

Hey SiberianRat: I don't purport to speak for anyone other than myself. I do have an opinion, though, and it matters. I think it was VERY helpful to the ongoing discussion about the issues. If you don't think so, don't keep reading. Duh.

ScottsBigM­outh.com/s­cott@foval­.com

[dtd]

"A rare mis step." According to whom? Certainly not the vast majority of Americans who AGREE with Rick Warren. Certainly not the African American Community, President elect Obama's LARGEST voting block. Certainly not the Latino Community who secured him vital south western states and certainly not the citizens in the key states of Ohio and Florida. And certainly not the new south of Virginia and North Carolina where the black vote was key, not the gay vote. Don't be mad at President elect Obama for your political effectiveness; be mad at yourselves. He's not the one that couldn't defeat a gay marriag ban in arguably the gayest state in the country.

[scottsbigmouth]

dtd: You are being as ignorant as one could be. The GLBTQ community has always supported equal rights for ALL people, especially the African-American community and Latino communities; each which have extremely effective GLBTQ supports quadrants in their own sub-sectors. The reality is that the GLBTQ community has helped all of these other communities succeed in getting their own candidates elected, furthering their agendas, and helping achieve equality for all people. Arguably, the GLBTQ community has directly financed as much if not more of the Democratic Party as a whole than any single other area of the DNC's and Obama's budgets. Re: California...it is well known that the Mormon Church violated major tenets of separation of church and state by dumping money into the Prop 8 campaign in California, and the church is being investigated for the practice by both the IRS and the FEC for violations of campaign finance laws. The Prop 8 debate was manipulated by religious zealots, as you have been.

[singforpeace]

dtd----not about Prop 8, it's about not being a "social issue" -- we are human beings. And I am black and I am a lesbian, so don't speak for me. I still support Obama, but this was a catastrophic mistake. He will have a lot of work to do to ease this pain he has caused.

[martinspringfield]

The "vast" majority of Americans do not agree with Rick Warren. The majority of Americans, vast or not, do not want Creationism taught in schools. A very sizable majority want abortion to be legal and safe and for women to have the right of choice. As for gay marriage - that one I will grant is not yet favored by the majority, but it is gaining in favor every year and by the time Obama is out of office it will be as accepted as interracial marriage is now. It's a global phenomenon. And make no mistake: marriage is a civil contract and participating in that contract is a civil right. Like the mother in law, the Church is only a guest at the ceremony and is not involved in the couple's life afterward, unless they mistakenly choose to let it.

[damienv5]

As a straight man, I can't claim to speak from your perspective, but I know that a lot of Progressives have been concerned about some of his other appointments, not the least of which was that of HRC.

I think you have a point in that the GLBTQ community will now be on alert, but I also think you point out the very reason he is doing this, and that is to appeal to conservatives with what is essentially a meaningless gesture.

By all means, stay on alert for this and any other indication that he is straying from his mantra of change, but let's not write the man off just yet and let's see if he can't have an influence on the right just as he's had on the majority of America and you might be surprised at who jumps the fence in the end. He may intend to bring change, but he lives in the here and now and he has to play the game before he can re-write it.

[scottsbigmouth]

damienv5: I'm so with you on this. I actually submitted both this piece and my HIV+ coming out story to Obama's transition page at Change.gov to remind them that we're watching. Progressives as a whole and the GLBTQ community MUST stay vigilant and not allow zealots to infiltrate the Presidency of unity and of change. That's what happened with GWB, and is why we're in a mess now. We need to keep Obama on the Progressive (a.k.a. CENTRIST) course.

[Classof89]

All right, why no mention of Rev. Joseph Lowery in this article? I guess he's not important enough to think or talk about.

[scottsbigmouth]

Classof89: The point of the article was to discuss the hypocrisy of putting someone like Rick Warren up there. Rev Lowery has not been a public zealot on the issue of GLBTQ equality. Rev. Lowery didn't put himself out there in as such a forceful manner...and though he is on the docket, its not quite the point. Warren is in the crosshairs of the GLBTQ community because of what he has said and done.

[JimR]

It is not hypocritical at all. Obama has said repeatedly he would reach out to people with whom he may not agree on everything. If he appointed Warren to a Cabinet position, or to lead a committee on gay rights, you might have a point. All he has done is ask the man to deliver a 2-minute prayer. But he saved the benediction, the "final word" if you will, of the ceremony, for a pastor who supports gay rights.

As Obama has said, Inauguration Week is for ALL the people, not just people whom I agree with, or whom you agree with.