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.”
See Rick Warren works to calm gay marriage controversy
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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.”
See Rick Warren works to calm gay marriage controversy
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Gays, lesbians hopeful despite inaugural pastor
Hope – and the idea that the country’s new leader would break down barriers of discrimination – overshadowed the disappointment many gays and lesbians felt when an outspoken critic of same-sex marriage gave the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration Tuesday.
“I am completely hopeful, optimistic, relieved, enthusiastic – even knowing that he’s going to disappoint,” said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
Obama’s decision to have the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer dampened Kendell’s expectations “of how culturally competent Obama is on gay and lesbian issues,” she said. “I think it’s a reminder of how much work we have to do.”
Warren, Evangelical pastor of the Saddleback Church in Orange County, was a chief proponent of Proposition 8, the California ballot measure approved last year that bars gays and lesbians from marrying.
He also has equated same-sex marriage to incest, polygamy and pedophilia and has said that gays and lesbians should resist the urge to act on their sexuality. Warren made no such references during the globally broadcast invocation.
Instead, he spoke of the need to pursue commitment to “justice for all” and “civility in our actions, even when we differ.”
Gays, lesbians hopeful despite inaugural pastor
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Los Angeles Affiliate KABC-TV Refuses to Air Ad With Gay Families During Inauguration: ‘Too Controversial, Families Will Be Watching.’
LOS ANGELES, CA — Non-profit organization GetToKnowUsFirst.org produced five 30-second commercials featuring gay and lesbian families, with the message “Marriage promotes families. Support marriage equality.” The ads, while not tied to any current election, are the result of California’s passage of Proposition 8 in November. The group aired the spots in 42 of the states’ 58 counties — everywhere the initiative passed by 50% or more — during Tuesday’s coverage of the Presidential Inauguration. KABC is the only station that refused to sell the ad space.
The rejected ad profiles two African American men raising five children ages 6 through 25. Ironically, the family lives in Los Angeles.
The media buy was attempted by the organization’s ad agency, New and Improved Media. Its CEO, Keith Fisher, was surprised that KABC rejected the group’s money. Fisher said, “We usually only see this with risque content, as in a trailer for a movie.” He added, “If KABC thinks they have to protect the public from this family, something’s obviously very wrong over there.”
Chris Yokogawa, the ad agency’s media buyer, worked with the station, attempting to ease any concerns they might have. He said, “We went back and forth a couple of times. I explained that this family is far from controversial. They were firm in their rejection. They said it was too controversial to air during the Inauguration, since ‘many families will be watching.’”
The ad aired across California on Tuesday — before, during and after the Presidential Inauguration on Good Morning America, The Today Show, Despierta America (Univision) and Levantate (Telemundo) broadcasts, as well as on a wide range of regional news stations, CNN and FoxNews during evening coverage of the day’s events.
Project Coordinator John Ireland expressed astonishment at KABC’s rejection. He said, “This ad is about families. I challenge anyone to watch the commercials at www.GetToKnowUsFirst.org and articulate what is inappropriate about airing it at any time of day.”
One week prior, at attorney Gloria Allred’s urging, Rev. Rick Warren indicated he would be willing to show the ads to his congregation at Saddleback Church in Orange County. Days before the Presidential Inauguration, he changed his mind, dropping the offer.
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Gay Bishop Gene Robinson Left Out Of HBO Concert Coverage
Sunday’s big Lincoln Memorial show was billed as the “We Are One” concert, intended to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama with a spirit of unity. But for those of us watching at home, one participant was excluded — Gene Robinson, the “first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop in a major Christian denomination.” Robinson was on hand to deliver an opening prayer to the event, but this prayer went unseen by anyone watching on HBO, who provided and sponsored the coverage.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for HBO stated that decisions regarding the timing and presentation of Robinson’s remarks were made by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, and that Robinson was “not a part of our show from the start.” Indeed, Robinson appeared minutes before the 2:30pm start time of the concert coverage. HBO’s response to the matter has been uniform. A spokeperson offered AfterElton.com much the same response: “The producer of the concert has said that the Presidential Inaugural Committee made the decision to keep the invocation as part of the pre-show.”
HBO comes to this controversy without any sort of significant reputation for being a network or a workplace hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. In fact, the network is responsible for airing the drama Six Feet Under, which depicted gays in complex relationships unflinchingly. The Obama camp, on the other hand, has courted controversy already with the decision to include in the inauguration Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren, a supporter of Proposition 8 in California. The appearance of a snub in the case of Bishop Robinson has successfully raised the temperature among Democratic activists and in the liberal blogosphere, where outrage is being pointed mostly at the incoming administration and the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
Watch the prayer here: Gay Bishop Gene Robinson Left Out Of HBO Concert Coverage
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Lowery’s Preaching, Not Warren’s, Will Illuminate Inaugural Day The Nation.
No one should be surprised that President-elect Barack Obama would choose self-promoting Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inaugural. Warren has been hustling for years to make himself the “new Billy Graham” — seeking to fill the vacating role of spiritual adviser to presidents, be they born-again Republicans or born-right-the-first-time Democrats.
Obama, always on the watch for ways to broaden his base of support, has been developing a relationship with Warren for many years, as he has with other fundamentalist preachers who try to put a smile on their intolerance.
Back in December 2006, when he was merely a senator with unannounced presidential ambitions, Obama delivered a smart, sensitive address at Warren’s “2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church,” a high-profile event on the pastor’s Saddleback Church campus in Lake Forest, Calif.
Twenty months later, as the soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee, Obama went back to Saddleback for an unfortunate joint appearance with Republican John McCain — the last major misstep of the senator’s bid for the nation’s top job.
Past is prologue, and Obama’s dalliances with Warren, for better or worse, always pointed to the placement of this particular pastor on the inaugural stage.
What will be significant about Warren’s remarks, however, is that they will be so insignificant.
Warren’s invocation will be forgotten five minutes after it is finished.
Indeed, the only “news” that will come from his appearance at the inaugural is the controversy surrounding it — and the protests that controversy may spark.
Far more significant, and encouraging, than his off-putting selection of Warren to deliver the invocation is Obama’s choice of a genuine spiritual progressive to deliver the benediction.
It is the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery who will present the far more uplifting and meaningful religious message on Inauguration Day. And in his appealing selection of the 87-year-old Lowery, Obama has made a choice that is far more adventurous — even, dare we say, radical — than his unappealing designation of Warren.
Lowery was the longtime president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which he co-founded in 1957, before Obama was born, with the Revs. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shuttlesworth. An essential player in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, Lowery was sent by King to deliver the demands of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march to Alabama’s segregationist governor, George Wallace, and it was to Lowery that Wallace apologized three decades later.
Long after King and most of the other founding fathers of the civil rights movement had been buried, Lowery carried on the struggle. He led the 1982 drive to extend the federal Voting Rights Act. In 2005, when it came time to renew the act once more, Lowery famously cornered Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a memorial service for Rosa Parks to ask for maintaining voting rights protections. Why did Lowery choose so somber a setting to make his appeal to the most prominent African-American member of President Bush’s Cabinet? “Because I knew she could not move,” he explained.
See Lowery’s Preaching, Not Warren’s, Will Illuminate Inaugural Day The Nation.
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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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Prop 8 advocate to deliver Obama invocation
(Washington) Gay rights groups are voicing their opposition to the choice of Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at President-elect Barrack Obama’s inauguration.
Warren is the outspoken evangelical pastor of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. – one of the state’s largest megachurches.
He was a major supporter …
