No, it's not THE INAUGURATION. And yes, Rick Warren is still doing that one. Still, this strikes me as, perhaps, recognition that the Warren thing was a misstep, and that they're trying to make amends.
President-elect Barack Obama has asked Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop who helped advise him on gay rights issues during the campaign, to deliver the invocation at a kickoff inaugural event on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, two days before the inauguration itself…. The event that Bishop Robinson will participate in is on Sunday, Jan. 18 – the first day of formal inaugural festivities in Washington. It will be broadcast later that night on HBO, which will provide a free signal so that people who don’t have HBO can also watch it, said Linda Douglass, chief spokesperson for the presidential inaugural committee. Mr. Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will attend, and the event will include entertainers whose participation is still being finalized, Ms. Douglass said. [Apparently, the list includes Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce Knowles, Stevie Wonder, Bono, Shakira, Mary J. Blige, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Renee Fleming, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles, John Mellencamp, Usher Raymond IV and James Taylor. Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Queen Latifah, and Martin Luther King III will be there too.]
Robinson is, of course, an extremely controversial figure, and in many ways is at the heart of the ongoing schism in the Episcopalian/Anglican church. The “establishment” gay rights leaders are saying nice things about putting Robinson front and center at the DC event:
Gay rights leaders said they regarded Bishop Robinson’s inclusion as an indication of Mr. Obama’s support. Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group, said, “We have to be prepared for a roller coaster ride, but know that the decision to include Gene Robinson is a symbolic indication that at the end of this administration GLBT people will have made more advances in the direction of equality that at any other time of our history.” Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, a gay rights group, said, “Bishop Robinson is a world historical figure at this point. He is at the center of the Episcopal Church’s embrace of gay people and a symbol of inclusion even when it’s difficult. And to choose him, of all the other figures that could have been chosen, even as a balance to Rick Waren, I think it still is a very powerful statement.”
What about you?
Cool- I wonder what channel?
I think it’s him sticking to his pledge to be everyone’s president. I think this is an extremely shrewd move.
If this wasn’t in response to all the action against Warren, to show that at the very least Obama was listening, then I’m going to wake up to see pigs fly. The fact is if Robinson was Obama’s intention all along, before Warren was ever picked, as is suggested… why wait all this time? Why not announce it sooner, especially as it occurs sooner?
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p>It doesn’t pass the smell test.
but rather than this isn’t him admitting that his selection of Warren was an error on his part.
we’ll never really know the answer to that, unless he later admits it or if he asks Warren to step aside.
That the American breakaway of the Anglican church is the Episcopal Church, whose breakaway faction is the Anglican Church…who once counted among its patrons: kevin bacon!
…just basically a breakaway from the Anglican church? And isn’t Kevin Bacon American?
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p>(I got there in two degrees. I win!)
Anglican split … religious civil war?
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p>Abraham Lincoln … gay president?
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p>One could go a long way down this hall of mirrors.
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p>I think it is a fine thing.
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p>I still think Warren was a bad choice.
Here’s what I said at my blog, but basically I’m happy that Obama has shown he’s at least listening and trying. I’m also glad this shows that the actions taken by the LGBT community and its allies were not totally in vain. I still hope, though, that the President Elect will do the right thing and ask Warren to step aside.
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p>Here’s why: This isn’t a reverse tit-for-tat. One action doesn’t make up for the other. As i said on my blog today,
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p>Yesterday’s analogy was that it would never be acceptable to invite David Dukes to give an invocation at the inaugural, so why should it be acceptable for a homophobic pastor who would see my rights stripped?
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p>Today’s analogy is that it still wouldn’t be right to give David Dukes that honor, even if it were followed by giving Martin Luther King an invocation before that invocation.
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p>The fact is I hold higher standards for this party: we don’t legitimize bigots. Or shouldn’t, at least.
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p>Legitimize is the key word. No one’s saying that Obama should’t be able to reach out to Warren, just that he shouldn’t be giving Warren the invocation speech. During last year’s big casino battles, I was heavily invested with the Casino Free Mass group. One of its charter members was freaking Mass Family Institute. I attended meetings with Evelyn Reilly, of all people! Evelyn Reilly!
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p>So of course I get the fact that Obama should pursue Warren when working on the environment, for example. However, you didn’t see me invite Ms. Reilly over during the holidays or me give her any great honors. We had a common goal and worked on it and that was it. Obama goes way too far in allowing Warren the invocation – it’s a still a huge slap in the face toward the glbt community and it still legitimizes bigotry. Maybe HRC will be appeased, but the rank and file glbt democratic activist won’t – and shouldn’t be. This still reeks.
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p>There’s a lot of things my party does that I don’t like. However, I stick with it because I think the best change will come from working on the inside rather than standing on the outside and pelting it with rocks. This event was way more like the rock-throwing than the inside-work that had propelled the GLBT movement in the recent decades.
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p>I think my opinion of this all can be summed up by a Carolyn Heilbrun quote:
was a perfect example of working from the inside.
to not being one. For a short time, I thought I was going to see some burning Obama effigies in the streets.
But this has been bugging me no end: his name is “David Duke”. No ess at the end. Please tell me there aren’t enough copies of him to warrant the plural!
that David Dukes was a character actor who died about 10 years ago. David Duke is the KKK racist type jerk.
For Rick Warren at the main event, does it?
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p>The Obama team poked a sharp stick in the eye of the glbt community. They can try to make up in other ways, but I for one still feel quite wounded by Warren’s selection.
Is a person that doesn’t wholeheartedly endorse your little splinter of the democratic party platform. I am proud to join President-elect Obama as a bigot.
From this week’s New Yorker:’
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p>Emphasis mine. I don’t think Bishop Robinson’s appointment changes anything.
but I tend to agree with Ryan that, while this move with Robinson doesn’t “solve” the problem, it’s a sign of progress. Don’t underestimate how controversial Robinson is — he’s at least as controversial as Warren, in a different way.
Rick Warren has invited them to join up with him. Such
an opportunista uniter he is!Now that’s some impressive empire-building. “Hey folks — you and I share almost nothing theologically, except that neither of us cares for the gays. Come on in!”
… that has created the modern GOP. They built up this ‘librul’ straw man as a common enemy.
Progressives need to realize that religious Americans make natural allies for our cause since they care just as passionately for the cause of economic and social justice in our society, a protected and cherished natural environment, a foreign policy that values justice and life, and a social policy that opposes unjust wars, the death penalty, and respects human rights.
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p>Rick Warren does not share my position on marriage equality and opposes gay marriage. But so does Barack Obama, and the double standard Warren has been subjected to is exactly the kind of anti-clerical bigotry that has allowed the Democratic party to consistently lose elections. Obama won, in part, because he had an excellent outreach program to people of faith. He carried 6% more evangelicals than John Kerry did and won the majority of the evangelical vote in several swing states including OH. He was also the first Democrat to win a solid majority of the Catholic vote since Bill Clinton in 1996. By reaching out to figures like Rick Warren Obama is letting evangelicals know that he is their President too and will listen to their concerns. He is not like Bush, solely an evangelical President, and the country and indeed the evangelical community itself has seen what a disaster that was to be so closely aligned to a political figure. But we can only continue to win elections if we reach out to the broad majority of Americans that sincerely and ardently have faith and put that faith to the many common areas where secular progressives and evangelical christians find so much agreement.
He is a builder of personal empire, not a person of faith. He doesn’t represent what you think he does.
between “religious Americans” and followers of Rick Warren. The former is a very large group, and incredibly diverse in viewpoints, including many who, for instance, support gay marriage. The latter group is quite small, and quite non-diverse. That’s what the “fuss” is about. If you don’t get that, you need to do some more investigation into Warren’s track record.
By ‘religious Americans’ I meant Catholics and evangelical Christians and people that attend worship service at least once a week, those are demographics that were once Democratic but since Ronald Reagan have shifted to the Republican column with the exception of 1992, 1996, and 2008 where Democratic Presidential candidates were able to make some headway with these groups and shrink the deficit.
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p>While Nate Silver and others have said we can just wait twenty years for the gay marriage opponents to die off, I would rather win with as broad a coalition as possible as soon as possible and that includes more socially conservative elements that agree with the Democrats on the bigger issues from the environment, the economy, economic justice and equality, and war and peace. On these issues Rick Warren has said he opposes global warming, he has fought AIDS in Africa, his ’empire’ has been one of the biggest financial backers, next to USAID, of Rwanda and Uganda’s surprisingly successful AIDS prevention education programs, he came out in favor of a withdrawl from Iraq, and he and other evangelicals are starting to turn around on civil unions which is a major concession from them even if that position is considered just as intolerant as opposing all gay rights out here in bright blue MA.
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p>I do not agree with Rick Warrens concept of a ‘purpose driven church’, I do not agree with the prosperity gospel which to his credit he has recently changed heart on, I do not like his shameless self promotion and I believe his Saddleback Forum was incredibly unfair to Barack Obama while he levied softballs at confessed agnostic and adulterer John McCain demonstrating his bias.
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p>That said he will soon be taking the place of Billy Graham as
‘Americas Pastor’ a role we can debate as being unnecessary in a liberal democratic and pluralistic society but a role that a large chunk of Americans take seriously and one successful Democratic politicians from Carter to Clinton to Obama pay attention too. And frankly claiming he is intolerant and unworthy of blessing our next President merely because he opposes gay marriage when a large majority of liberal democrats in Congress do as well from Nancy Pelosi to John Kerry to President-elect Obama is a bit hypocritical and short sighted. Obama is the President for a purple America, not a blue America, and it is time the liberal base recognizes it elected a centrist.
He actively campaigned to overturn the legal recognition of gay relationships. I think counselling members of your church against something is one thing; imposing your religious views on everyone through changing the law is another matter. Others also have posted here on BMG language from Warren’s church’s website – removed once it came to the attention of the media – stating that active glbt people were not welcome to worship at the church and clips showing Warren comparing gay relationships to pedophilia. This guy, however he may like to think of himself, is not one of the angels. He should never have been given a platform at the inauguration.
has compared Nigeria’s virulently gay Peter Akinola to Nelson Mandela, has undermined the Episcopal church by inviting the anti-gay break-away congregations to join is or use his facilities, and supports Martin Ssempa of Uganda who forbids condom use by his flock, telling them that Jesus will cure them of AIDS if they only pray with true devotion.
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p>Ain’t he a pip?