Deliver Us from Rick Warren

I suppose that Barack Obama can be friends with whoever he wants to, but I sure don't see the appeal Rick Warren has for him. I hadn't gotten around yet to talking about Warren's recent interview at Beliefnet, but Sarah Posner has a nice write-up at Tapped:

"They can't accuse me of homophobia," says Rick Warren, the celebrity preacher and icon of the "new" or "broader agenda" evangelicals, in a new interview with Beliefnet editor Steven Waldman. Pastor Rick protests that he's not a homophobe because he's given money to people with AIDS. He has gay friends and has even eaten dinner in "gay homes."

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Warren dodged Waldman's question about whether he supported civil unions or domestic partnerships, answering instead, "I support full equal rights for everyone in America," adding that he only opposes a "redefinition" of marriage. He went on to say he's opposed to gay marriage the same way he is opposed to a brother and sister marrying (that would be incest), a man marrying a child (that would be statutory rape), or someone having multiple spouses (that would be polygamy). Pressed by Waldman, Warren said he considered those crimes equivalent to gay marriage.

Well, at least he didn't compare it to bestiality. That's very big of Warren to be for equal rights for everyone as long as one group of people aren't allowed to get married. Nothing says equality like differing standards. And it's also commendable that not only us Warren willing to go into a gay home to eat food, he already has. The real question, however, is whether he'd leave his grandchildren with a gay babysitter. Now that would be open minded.

So it comes as not a little disappointment that Warren has been invited to deliver the invocation at Obama's swearing in at the inauguration. Not that I think it will make any difference, but Warren hinted strongly that he couldn't in good faith vote for Obama. Does that mean that he doesn't believe Obama is fit to be president? If not, it's certainly close. People for the American Way had a nice response:

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. He has recently compared marriage by loving and committed same-sex couples to incest and pedophilia. 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.

Just the guy you want to have to prove that it's no longer business as usual in Washington. Nothing about those views are reminiscent of any part of the problems we've been facing for the past eight years. This certainly isn't the biggest issue facing us these days, but moves like this from Obama give Warren credibility and respectability he wouldn't otherwise have. That's not change we can believe in.