Rick Warren works to calm gay marriage controversy

Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren continues to be haunted by past statements on gay marriage, and tried to soften his anti-gay marriage posture last week onLarry King‘s show. Warren stood by his belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but said he’s never been an activist on the issue.

Part of what’s gotten him into hot water was a video-taped interview, available on the Internet, done before the Nov. 4 vote to implement the Proposition 8 gay marriage ban. In it, Warren seemed to liken gay marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy.

“I’m opposed to having a brother and sister together and calling that marriage. I’m opposed to having an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I’m opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.”

The interviewer then asks, “Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?

“Oh, I do,” responded the megachurch leader, whose subsequent selection to give Barack Obama’s inaugural invocation stirred controversy.

Warren later posted a video on his Web site to try to clarify his view. But there was still more clarifying going on with Larry King last week.

“I am not an anti-gay or anti-marriage activist. Never have been, never will be,” he said. “During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement.

“The week before the vote, somebody in my church said, ‘Pastor Rick, what do you think about this?’ And I sent a note to my own members that said, ‘I actually believe that marriage really should be defined – that that definition should be saved between a man and a woman.’ And then all of a suddenly out of it they made me, you know something that I really wasn’t. …

“I wrote to all my gay friends, the leaders that I knew and actually apologized to them. That never got out. There were some things said – everybody should have 10% grace when they say public statements and I was asked a question that made it sound like I equated gay marriage with pedophilia or incest which I absolutely do not believe.”

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Rick Warren works to calm gay marriage controversy

The interviewer then asks, “Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?

“Oh, I do,” responded the megachurch leader, whose subsequent selection to give Barack Obama’s inaugural invocation stirred controversy.

Warren later posted a video on his Web site to try to clarify his view. But there was still more clarifying going on with Larry King last week.

“I am not an anti-gay or anti-marriage activist. Never have been, never will be,” he said. “During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement.

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Gay Former Clinton Aide Lashes Out at Obama Over Warren

It’s becoming clear that while the gay rights movement’s leaders are thrilled with Obama’s invitation to Gene Robinson to join inauguration festivities, lots of its rank and file are still deeply distressed over Rick Warren giving the invocation on Inauguration Day. As a reporter, it’s often tricky figuring out if a movement’s—any movement, from the Christian right to the antiwar left—spokespeople are truly representing whom they claim to speak for.

Without polls, it’s really impossible to know.

But I’m getting more and more angry comments and E-mails from members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community furious with their nominal leaders. This E-mail from a former Clinton White House aide who requested anonymity captures the lingering anger over Warren:

. . . [T]he problem here goes well beyond Warren’s incendiary language equating gay marriage with incest. He is what he is. The greater problem lies in the President-Elect’s cruel calculation that this insult and offense to gay America is acceptable collateral damage for whatever plus he sees in the suck-up to Warren, giving profile and platform to this mega-merchant of discrimination in the first program agenda item during the first official act of his first day in office. I was one of the 12 first-ever openly gay White House staff members to take up work the day following President Clinton’s inauguration. His respect for gay Americans was evident even when setbacks and disappointments slowed the change agenda, and he certainly did not deliberately nor unnecessarily scheme to sell out gay Americans on his first day in office to score points with opponents. Ordinary gay Americans will need to hold this new Administration to the tenets of its campaign and to the idealism of its Inaugural language — and to a fundamental expectation for respect. The Warren invitation remains a disgrace and a blemish on day one of the new Administration. Shame on Obama.

For a lot of LGBT folks, the heartburn over Warren will linger awhile. But what if Obama delivers on a major LGBT political goal in his first term, something like ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” like the president-elect’s spokesman recently promised? It’s hard to imagine the current gay ambivalence over Obama outlasting such a huge advance for the LGBT cause. The reality of policy would quickly overwhelm symbolic concerns.

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Obama’s Pastor Pick Makes Anti-Gay Gesture – Again …..

Rick Warren, who has been out of the news for, oh, about 10 minutes, since the controversial California pastor was picked to give the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration, is back.

Recapping here: After sticking a fork in the eye of gay rights advocates by actively supporting Proposition 8 — which overturned the legalization of gay marriage in California — Warren compounded their outrage by equating gay marriage with incest in an interview with Beliefnet.

The hubbub lulled down a little over the holidays but today, he’s back, with an open invitation to any group displaced by their denomination. This is code for Episcopal congregations that oppose that church’s acceptance of a gay bishop in 2003. Earlier this week, a California judge ruled that a breakaway congregation, St. James in Newport Beach, cannot keep its property now that they have left the Episcopal Church.

The Southern Baptist Warren shared his letter with Christianity Today which says, in part:

We stand in solidarity with them, and with all orthodox, evangelical Anglicans. I offer the campus of Saddleback Church to any Anglican congregation who need a place to meet, or if you want to plant a new congregation in south Orange County.

See Rev. Rick Warren takes another jab
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