As we get ready to begin a new administration, here’s one important rule for loyal Democrats to remember: You don’t have to agree with Barack Obama on every issue.
Good thing! Because a lot of Democrats find it impossible to agree with Obama’s inviting evangelical Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration.
Granted, Rick Warren’s more progressive than most evangelicals. He’s a leader on global warming, for example, and has also encouraged Christians to focus less on divisive social issues and more on global issues like poverty and AIDS. Indeed, those positions have earned him the reputation of a “Christian flip-flopper” among many evangelicals. But Warren is still clearly on the opposite side of several important progressive issues Democrats have fought for all their lives.
For starters, Warren is strongly anti-abortion. In a recent interview with columnist Steven Waldman on Beliefnet.com, Warren argues that life begins at conception – based on his reading of the Bible, not on science. He also equates abortion with the Holocaust and ridicules calls for reducing the number of abortions – through family planning or comprehensive sex education, for example – as little more than a “charade.” While he insists that Obama is a “good friend,” he admits that the idea of voting for a “Holocaust denier” (i.e., someone who is pro-choice) was a “deal breaker” for evangelicals.
Wait a minute. The Democratic Party is officially pro-choice. So is Barack Obama. So what’s an anti-choice preacher doing up there with a Democratic president?
Not only that, Rick Warren also supported Proposition 8 on California’s November ballot, which overturned a California Supreme Court decision and outlawed same-sex marriage – a measure Barack Obama opposed. In the same Waldman interview, Warren contends there’s no difference between same-sex marriage and a brother marrying his sister (incest), an older man marrying a young child (pedophilia), or a man’s having multiple wives (polygamy). According to Warren, they all violate the traditional definition of marriage that’s 5,000 years old.
Actually, 5,000 years ago, the traditional definition of marriage was, in fact, a man’s having multiple wives – which Warren would know if he had, in fact, read the Bible. But more to the point: The Democratic Party is officially pro-gay rights. So is Barack Obama. Again, what’s an anti-gay preacher doing up there with a Democratic president?
On another issue, Warren is also an outspoken creationist, who believes that the theory of “intelligent design,” and not evolution, should be taught in public schools. “If you’re asking me do I believe in evolution, the answer is no, I don’t. I believe that God, at a moment, created man. I do believe Genesis is literal,” he told Newsweek’s Jon Meacham.
Warren further believes that homosexuality disproves evolution. He explained to CNN’s Larry King: “If Darwin was right, which is survival of the fittest, then homosexuality would be a recessive gene because it doesn’t reproduce and you would think that over thousands of years that homosexuality would work itself out of the gene pool.” Of course, Warren ignores the obvious conclusion that since homosexuality has not “worked itself out of the gene pool,” it can no longer really be considered abnormal human behavior.
Add to his religious views the fact that Warren’s last involvement in politics was in 2004, when he sent a letter to 150,000 pastors urging “those of us who accept the Bible as the word of God” to vote for George W. Bush, and you have to wonder: What was Barack Obama thinking?
His staff says Obama’s decision to invite Warren to give the invocation is just one more way for him to show how “inclusive” he is. Hogwash. Obama wouldn’t invite a white supremacist to speak. So why invite a man who contradicts everything the Democratic Party stands for? Don’t elections mean anything?
Four million Obama supporters are expected to gather in Washington on Jan. 20 to celebrate his inauguration and welcome the change of direction he promised. But, unfortunately, there will be a dark cloud hanging over the Washington Mall that day, because one of the first speakers they hear will be a man who, despite his good works in some areas, also preaches the divisive policies of the past: anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-evolution. Let’s just hope he doesn’t wear a Hawaiian shirt.
Yes, Barack Obama has made a lot of good moves so far. But chalk this one up as his first big mistake.
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