REACHING ACROSS THE VILE

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

I was one of the lucky Americans able to acquire a ticket to Obama's Swearing-In ceremony in D.C. in January. For time/money reasons, I probably won't be going. And now I'm not feeling so bad about it.

Obama has invited the mega-priest Rick Warren to speak. Some people who are positively inclined view it as a gesture of unity, of "reaching across the aisle." I think it was a mistake.

Rick Warren heads the hugely influential Saddleback Church, a giant evangelical institution based in Southern California.

Whatever- evangelicals are Americans- I get it. But Rick Warren is particularly vile in his public hate speech. He maintains and argues that homosexuality is a sin on par with incest, bestiality, etc. He was also behind California's Proposition 8 which banned gay marriage in California. He wields enormous power within and without California. In short, he has been hugely detrimental to the gay community. For many Americans he is a symbol of hatred.

His invitation to the ceremony shows a lapse in judgment by Obama. His political team is too savvy not to have foreseen the controversy Warren would bring. I believe the Obama administration made a cold political decision that evangelicals outnumber gays, who are loyal to the party anyway.

The invitation is very disrespectful to gays.

Gays have been fiercely loyal to Obama, who has maintained an imperfect record with regards to gay rights. He was mysteriously missing from the Prop 8 battle, he dodged a photo-op with Gavin Newsome supposedly to avoid association with "San Francisco values," and now he has invited an anti-gay icon to initiate his presidency. I am a little concerned.

Obama: in politics you don't always gets three strikes, and this counts as strike one.