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Rick Warren, Obama Invocation Choice, Causing First Real Rift With Progressives

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IndianaGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 07:42 PM
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Rick Warren, Obama Invocation Choice, Causing First Real Rift With Progressives
Rick Warren, Obama Invocation Choice, Causing First Real Rift With Progressives

Sam Stein


On Wednesday, the transition team announced that Rick Warren, pastor of the powerful Saddleback Church, would give the invocation on January 20th. The selection may not have been incredibly surprising. Obama and Warren are reportedly close -- Obama praised the Megachurch leader in his second book "The Audacity of Hope." Warren, meanwhile, hosted a values forum between Obama and McCain during the general election. Nevertheless, the announcement is being greeted with deep skepticism in progressive religious and political circles.

"My blood pressure is really high right now," said Rev. Chuck Currie, minister at Parkrose Community United Church of Christ in Portland, Oregon. "Rick Warren does some really good stuff and there are some areas that I have admired his ability to build bridges between evangelicals and mainline religious and political figures... but he is also very established in the religious right and his position on social issues like gay rights, stem cell research and women's rights are all out of the mainstream and are very much opposed to the progressive agenda that Obama ran on. I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage with the president that day."

Warren does have a rather peculiar relationship with the incoming president. The two share a general ethos that political differences should not serve as impediments to progress. On topics like AIDS and poverty relief, they see eye-to-eye. But Warren's domestic and social agendas are at odds with Obama's. And for the gay and lesbian community in particular, the choice is a bitter pill to swallow.

"Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance," read a statement from People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert. "He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion."

"Picking Rick Warren to give THE invocation," wrote John Aravosis on AmericaBlog, "is abominable."

"Let me get right to the point," Joe Solomnese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, wrote in a harsh letter to the president-elect, "Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/17/rick-warren-obama-invocat_n_151877.html
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IndianaJones Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 07:43 PM
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1. funny. nt.
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mnhtnbb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 07:45 PM
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2. There are thousand ministers in the US who would have been better choices.
Obama never has been, and never will be a progressive. We're all going to have to realize this.
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IndianaGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 07:48 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. Obama seems to have a hang up with LGBT people
His congregation, the United Church of Christ, supports marriage rights for gays and lesbians, yet Obama is opposed to this most fundamental of all human rights. Why? Does he suffer from the same malaise that many Black males have about gay men, particularly Black gay men?
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still_one Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 08:10 PM
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5. It is not about being progressive, it is about giving a forum to someone who is intolerant
He threw Wright to the wolves because of Wright's "presumed" intollerance, yet he has no problem allowing a homophobe give the invocation

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peacebird Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 07:48 PM
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3. "Rev" Rick Warren delivering the invocation is a slap in the face to progressives, not just GLBT
Is this another case of Obama keeping his friends close but his enemies closer? That at least I could understand. This decision is the first one that I view as a major FU to progressives. All the others I could understand, but someone who has such rightwing bigotted views should NOT be giving the invocation.

Talk about setting the WRONG tone.


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still_one Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 08:12 PM
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6. He keeps this crap up, he will be a one term president /nt
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ecstatic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 08:13 PM
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7. the rift began with the Clinton for SOS pick nt
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1776Forever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 08:25 PM
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8. Very disappointing! I am amazed at this and not happy with it in any shape or form!
Edited on Wed Dec-17-08 08:25 PM by 1776Forever
What the H were they thinking and who thought this up in the first place?
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pnorman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 09:17 PM
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9. I'll have to search it out on DU,
but there was a very recent thread here on that topic. If I recall correctly, by congressional legislation from early in the previous century, the details of the inauguration are set by a Congressional committee. So FORMER Senator O'Bama would have little if any input there in that (largely lame-duck) group. So LIVE WITH IT! If you REALLY want to agonize on something, concentrate on things that really matter --- that O'Bama isn't really Irish; instead he's a muslim marxist! And don't forget his Kenyan citizenship!

I won't bother with the Sarcasm thingie, but I'll add this: although essentially an anarchist for most of my adult life, I was PROUD to cast my ballot for Barack! And my GREATEST hope is that, although presently 78.8, I'll be around to do the same thing in 2012!

pnorman
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-17-08 09:32 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. From a post I did it was Senator Feinstein from CA who announced the Inauguration Agenda...
I don't know why she was chosen...I thought it odd but maybe she had the Seniority in the Senate to do it? It might have been TOTALLY...her own picks except for a couple of choices Obama was left to make? :shrug:
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