Jessica

Vozel

Read Jessica's bio and previous columns here

December 29, 2008

Keep Promise on Gay Rights, And We’ll Forget About Rick Warren

The nation is a couple weeks shy of Barack Obama’s inauguration, and we’re beginning to see that sometimes the price of trying to unify a nation is further division. Seemingly fulfilling a promise against divisiveness, Obama and the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies invited Saddleback Church’s Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration ceremony.

Warren, while offering a different brand of politically engaged Christianity than the Old Guard religious right, has preached against gay marriage at his Orange County mega church, striking a familiar evangelical chord by comparing such unions to incest and polygamy. Many on both sides are not happy about this. Many from the religious right have sent angry letters and e-mails to Warren, criticizing him for agreeing to perform an invocation for a man who supports abortion. Liberals who expected real change see this as a slap in the face – a more-of-the-same move. 

After the blows the gay community has recently received, many argue that this move was – on Obama’s part – callous, disheartening and even cocky, as Obama seemed to assume that he was able to, in the words of Frank Rich, “spend his political capital” in this manner and not be called out for it. Says gay democratic Congressman Barney Frank of the choice, “I think he overestimates his ability to get people to put aside fundamental differences.” Though Americans of all political stripes were starry-eyed at the time of the election and during the transition period, we are perhaps entering a new period of pragmatism.

Unifying America sounded great on paper, and Obama was the man to do it. His multicultural identity and his promise to be an aisle-reacher and a clear-headed thinker made such unification seem possible. Now, Americans who believed we could come together are coming to understand that we are still a nation divided, and Obama is going to make plenty of decisions in the next four-to-eight years that anger one half of the nation while satisfying the other. Not every bill to which he puts his pen will be applauded by the majority of Americans, or even the majority of liberal Americans.

Obama’s attempts to reach across the aisle will probably cause an uproar rather than a kumbaya moment of alliance. While many liberals believe he ran a near-flawless campaign and a laudable transition, they certainly can’t expect the same of his time in the Oval Office. And let’s be honest for a second: Obama himself is against gay marriage. Sure, he never used the insidious terms that Warren did, but their views on the subject, in terms of the laws they want mandating it, line up. 

Warren, to be fair, is not your typical Focus on the Family bigot. He devotes much of his ministry to eliminating poverty and pioneering HIV/AIDS relief. He considers social issues like gay marriage and abortion to be less important, although his views on both are clear. He’s a popular spiritual figure in America, both for his best-selling self-help book with a Christian bent, The Purpose Driven Life, and his role in leading a faith-based election debate, the Saddleback Forum, this past August. There are worse choices for invocation leader, but there are better ones too, and it’s a shame that a celebrated moment in American history has to be marred by serving as a reminder to the gay community of how far they have yet to go. 

Obama has pledged allegiance to LGBTQ Americans, and I want to believe him. I hope that this concession was merely intended to placate the homophobes while he brings about the pro-gay legislation he has up his sleeve. Regardless, inviting Rick Warren to give the invocation is proof that Obama is willing to make good on his promise to incorporate dissenting voices. If he fulfills his other promises in the same manner, things just might get better and this Rick Warren thing will be quickly forgotten. 

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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