Gay leaders furious with Obama

Rick Warren, Obama’s pick to give the inaugural invocation, backed the California ban on same-sex marriage.
Photo: AP

Barack Obama’s choice of a prominent evangelical minister to deliver the invocation at his inauguration is a conciliatory gesture toward social conservatives who opposed him in November, but it is drawing fierce challenges from a gay rights movement that – in the wake of a gay marriage ban in California – is looking for a fight.

Rick Warren, the senior pastor of Saddleback Church in southern California, opposes abortion rights but has taken more liberal stances on the government role in fighting poverty, and backed away from other evangelicals’ staunch support for economic conservatism. But it’s his support for the California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that drew the most heated criticism from Democrats Wednesday.

“Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans,” the president of Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese, wrote Obama Wednesday. “We feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination.”

The rapid, angry reaction from a range of gay activists comes as the gay rights movement looks for an opportunity to flex its political muscle. Last summer gay groups complained, but were rebuffed by Obama, when an “ex-gay” singer led Obama’s rallies in South Carolina. And many were shocked last month when voters approved the California ban.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16693.html

Many of us who are not 'gay leaders' and not gay are furious, also.

I have many gay friends and have supported their cause for years. As a feminist, I oppose the marginalization of any group of people. To see a Democratic president ask someone like Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration is outrageous and a slap in the face to a group of people who supported him overwhelmingly over the Republican in the GE.

:(

One of my closest friends of 25 years is gay and I have a gay cousin living in California (this will be the second slap in the face for him in as many months, what with the passage of Prop 8).

Aparently, prop 8 was not quite bad enough so we are going to make sure everyone understands that gay people belong under the bus.

:mad:

It's not like Warren's only choice of hate targets is gay Americans.

Funny how that works.

that only gay folks are upset. They included liberal groups.

I saw a spirited discussion yesterday on 360 about this issue, only Roland Martin kept defending Obama's choice. Some woman named Hilary was quite angry about it, so was another guy I didn't recognize.

also pissed and disappointed.