President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony will feature big names like minister Rick Warren and legendary singer Aretha Franklin, the Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced Wednesday.
Warren, the prominent evangelical and founder of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, will deliver the ceremony's invocation.
There are many great and good clergy out there. Clergy in Obama's own denomination of the UCC. Clergy in my very own United Methodist Church. Catholic priests, Baptist preachers, Lutheran pastors, American Imams, Rabbis from all three sectors of Judaism - great and good men and women who could cry to heaven for Divine presence not just as Barack Obama is sworn in as President, but on all of us as we enter a new phase of being America.
Rick Warren needs to be sent packing to Brokeback Mountain Church, or whatever the hell it's called. In light of statements like the following, he might also be asked to go back and read the Bible, pray, and remain in silence for the still, small voice of God to tell him to remove his head from his ass.
His public support for California's Proposition 8 — the measure that successfully passed and called for outlawing gay marriage in the state — sparked the ire of many gay rights proponents, who seized on a comment in an October newsletter to his congregation: "This is not a political issue — it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about."
Over at Tapped, Sarah Posner catches the "Rev." Warren in an actual lie.
Warren claimed he supported Proposition 8 because of a free-speech issue -- asserting that "any pastor could be considered doing hate speech . . . if he shared his views that homosexuality wasn't the most natural way for relationships."
In simple words that even someone as dumb as Rick Warren could understand, that's just pure bullshit. In other words, it's a LIE.
You know, David Plouffe has our email addresses, and worked overtime clogging our in-boxes during the campaign with a whole lot of piffle. It might be nice to return to favor with something a bit more substantive. I have no problem mounting a campaign to get Obama to revoke the invitation to Warren. We don't need a troglodyte like him asking for God's blessings.
I think a good MCC pastor would do nicely.
UPDATE: I highlighted this a bit back, but I hadn't noticed Warren's endorsement of state-sponsored murder (no, not abortion):
Appearing on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes . . . to promote his new book, Pastor Rick Warren made a brief foray into foreign policy. Responding to Hannity’s assertion that “we need to take him [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] out,” Warren agreed, . . .(emphasis added)
Awful doesn't even begin to describe this kind of crap.
