You’re Likable Enough, Gay People

New York Times by Frank Rich | Dec. 28, 2008 (Opinion)

You can’t blame V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop and an early Obama booster, for feeling as if he’d been slapped in the face. “I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table,” he told The Times, but “we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I ... Full Story »

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Dale Penn
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 by Dale Penn - Dec. 29, 2008

While I agree with much of Rich's opinion piece, I don't think Obama has "anointed [Warren] as the inaugural's de facto pope. Rich makes a good case for those who are leery of Obama's selection of Warren, but it is hardly an original or enterprising case. Later in the piece he makes the point that Warren's appointment agers the fundamentalist left as well. This could have been noted earlier in the piece as it takes a big chink out of the argument Rich makes early on that the appointment was somehow an intentional affront to the LGBT community.

I'm still optimistic that Obama is trying to navigate a minefield of social division in our country and that Warren is likely much less of a daemon than his quote likening committed gay relationships to incest, polygamy and child molestation would seem to suggest. I say give Obama a chance to unite our much divided country, before we start dividing already.

McCarthy added that it’s also time “for President-elect Obama to start acting on the promises he made to the LGBT community during his campaign so that he doesn’t go down in history as another Bill Clinton, a sweet-talking swindler who would throw us under the bus for the sake of political expediency.” And “for LGBT folks to choose their battles wisely, to judge Obama on the content of his policy-making, not on the character of his ministers.”

I concur with the above quotes from Timothy McCarty who served on the Obama campaign’s National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Leadership Council. Based on everything I’ve read on this topic, I haven’t given up hope on Obama just because he has asked Warren to say a prayer at his inaugural.

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