In Preacher Pick, Obama Dismisses Gays

Barack Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to offer his inaugural invocation was a glaring and offensive misstep for a consistently savvy politician, writes prominent gay-rights activist Joe Solmonese in the Washington Post. Warren was a key proponent of Proposition 8, “the biggest loss our community has faced in decades,” Solmonese notes. “Are we angry about Rick Warren? You bet we are.”

The choice is a slap in the face to a community that worked hard to get Obama elected, “unlike Warren and probably most of his 21,000 parishioners,” Solmonese argues. Obama aides have noted that a gay marching band will play and an LGBT-rights supporter will close the ceremony. Solmonese fumes: “Would any inaugural committee say to Jewish Americans, ‘We're opening with an anti-Semite but closing the program with a rabbi, so don't worry’?”
(More Rick Warren stories.)