Reply #1: With All Due Respect, Juan Cole, You've Been Conned.

[justinaforjustice]

I have great respect for the thinking and writing of Juan Cole. He is one of the best bloggers on the net. In this case, however, I believe he has allowed the genial personality of Rick Warren to distort his thinking about him.

Rick Warren is leading a large segment of American Christians to attack gays and women's rights. Not only has Warren supported Proposition 8 to deprive gays of their rights to equal protection under American laws, but he has personally attacked gays as being equivalent to pedophiles and those who commit incest. His church officially refuses admission to homosexuals.

Not only does Warren fail to follow the basic Christian precept of love thy neighbor, he is leading the effort to unconstitutionally deprive his neighbor of basic rights.

Rick Warren may personally be a nice man or he may simply be an extraordinarily effective manipulator of those he meets, but his actions against his fellow human beings are horrific. This man should not be allowed an honored place at the Obama inauguration. To do so is to condone his bigotry and make it nationally acceptable. It is not.