Religion seems to be more controversial than politics in this Presidential transition.

He has incurred the displeasure of some of his supporters with his decision to ask Pastor Warren, who preaches at the fourth largest church in America, to perform the invocation at his inauguration.

Warren is extremely popular in America for his Bible-themed “Purpose Driven” guides for how to live a more meaningful life which have sold over 20 million copies.

He has also done a service to America, and particularly to moderate Christians in what remains a very religious nation, in helping to shift the focus of what defines the religious political movement away from just abortion and homosexuality toward AIDS in Africa, the plight of the poor, climate change and human rights.

Obama has already signalled his admiration for Warren when he appeared alongside his Republican opponent John McCain at a forum organised by the pastor to discuss faith and politics during the campaign.

Warren himself has received criticism from the religious Right for allegedly providing legitimacy for Obama by inviting him to speak at his church on World AIDS Day.

However, Warren is also a traditionalist on many issues and was a supporter of Proposition 8, which has left many of Obama’s gay and lesbian supporters outraged about his appearance at the inauguration on January 20th.

Various Facebook groups and bloggers have started to complain about this decision and no doubt protests will follow.

This puts the President-elect in a difficult position.

Warren is no James Dobson or Jerry Falwell.

He does not preach hate, even if some of his statements about gay marriage may be offensive, false, and frankly absurd.

He may not support same-sex marriage, but his position on equality for gay and lesbian people does not differ hugely from that of Obama – or indeed his opponents for the Democratic nomination, Senators Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

He believes in providing equal protections for the LGBT community. He is also in favour of same-sex unions, just as we have in the United Kingdom.

For all those who claim that it would all be different if Hillary Clinton had been elected they should recall that she has expressed her admiration for Warren and appeared at his church in 2007 where she received a standing ovation.

She said to Pastor Warren at the event: “The commitment you have demonstrated, both to our faith in God and to doing his work here on earth is exemplary.”

Let’s also remember that it was Billy Graham, who once said that all homosexuals should be castrated, who gave the invocation at President Clinton’s inauguration in 1993.

Obama was elected to unite the country.

Warren may not be acceptable to everyone but he represents a large part of mainstream America, and only when the hearts and minds of that part of the country are slowly changed will the nation truly become more accepting of gay and lesbian people.

Who knows, in the future Rick Warren may be a part of that.

Like many of the new generation of religious leaders, he is not palatable to gays and lesbians right now, but he does offer some hope for understanding and finding common ground, unlike the likes of Falwell and Dobson.

It should also be noted that at the inauguration Rev Joseph Lowery will join Pastor Warren in offering prayers.

He is the ‘dean of the Civil Rights movement’, the man who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr and a Christian who supports same-sex marriage.

Joe Solomnese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, wrote in a letter to the President-elect:

“Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans.”

It is a blow to gays and lesbians in America, but Obama is not abandoning this community or shunning it.

It is Obama, with a Democratic Congress, who offers the best hope for a decade of progress on LGBT rights.

I would suggest the gay rights lobby concentrate on passing employment anti-discrimination legisation, hate crimes laws, ending the ban on gays in the military and repealing the defence of marriage act (DOMA).

That will really change the lives of Americans, rather than focusing too much on one man with whom Obama does not agree with on every issue (Obama has stated categorically that he disagrees profoundly with his positions on abortion and homosexuality), but who is part of his efforts to bring red and blue states, gay and straight, religious and atheist together, as he promised throughout his campaign.

The Warren decision will upset many in the short-term. We may not like him. We may even hate him, but there is a bigger picture to consider.

Uniting America may be the best aspiration that everyone can have, even if it means engaging with those whom we respectfully disagree.

The mutual love-in that was the Logo Democratic Presidential “gay” forum this summer was more reminiscent of a sofa-style chat with Oprah than a fully-fledged political battle of ideas.

When rank outsider Dennis Kucinich announced that “I love all of you” in his final comments I feared the “debate” would descend into spontaneous collective rendition of Over the Rainbow accompanied by panellist Melissa Etheridge on acoustic guitar.

Fortunately, viewers were spared that fate but the message was clear; Democrats love the gays, or at least they say they do.

By contrast there was no Republican “gay” debate. Every GOP candidate declined to take part.

The conclusion looks simple.

If America chooses a Democrat in 2008 then gays and lesbians will be celebrating while if a Republican wins the White House we can expect more of the same after two terms of George W Bush.

There is some merit in that conclusion.

I think any impartial political analyst would agree that the political agenda of gay and lesbian rights in the United States stands a greater chance of being advanced with a Democrat taking the oath of office in 2009 rather than a Republican.

But there are a myriad of influences that will determine the ability of a President to bring about change, and in fact on many issues the leader of the free world will be utterly powerless.

There are three factors that will be paramount in determining whether those who have dreamed of a Democratic President bringing reform will have their hopes dashed or their aspirations realised.

The Congress, the states, and a slightly less tangible factor, political will, will be crucial.

As the current incumbent is experiencing, without a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate it is a tough, if not impossible, challenge for the President to achieve anything of substance in the domestic arena.

The latest approval ratings for President Bush are 31 per cent, while those for Congress languish even lower at 22 per cent.

The GOP appears to many to be disintegrating amid scandal and an unpopular war, but history shows us that America has a tendency to elect a Congress that opposes the President.

The Democrats are confident of holding on to the House and Senate but few disagree that they have failed to capitalise on the wave of public support that swept them to power last year.

Without a strong majority in the House and Senate a Democratic President will have only a limited leadership role to play on domestic issues and may lack the ability to persuade the Congress to push gay rights to the top of their legislative agenda.

The United States of America is a federal republic.

Unless powers are explicitly granted to the federal branches of government, they are reserved for the states.

One of the most politically sensitive issues in America in the last decade has been gay marriage.

None of the likely nominees from either party are supporting this cause.

While Democrats have signed up to civil unions, this is ultimately a battle that will be fought state-by-state and not in Washington D.C.

Neither the President nor the Congress has the power to impose gay marriage or civil unions on the fifty states that make up this federal republic.

President Bush’s efforts to amend the constitution banning gay marriage may be lifeless, but the idea that a President could single-handedly bring gay marriage to the United States is similarly dead in the water.

Thirty-nine states ban same-sex marriage with state constitutional amendments approved by public referendums.

The federal Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) prevented federal recognition of same-sex marriages and allowed states to refuse to recognise gay marriages performed elsewhere.

DOMA was passed overwhelmingly by Congress in 1996 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

While Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards all favour repealing Section 3 of DOMA and allowing the federal government grant the federal legal benefits of marriage to same-sex couples on the state level who are married, such as those in Massachusetts, only Obama and Kucinich support the repeal of the legislation in its entirety.

Finally let us consider that least tangible but perhaps most powerful of factors, political will.

It has been flattering to see the Democrat candidates openly court gay voters and equally enlightening to see Republicans refrain from anti-gay rhetoric on the campaign trail so far.

Yet when the new President takes office, the question remains whether the pursuit of gay rights can realistically be at the top of their in-tray.

The Clintons have deep scars on their back from the ill-fated effort to end the ban on gays in the military in 1993.

The messy compromise of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” left the Clinton White House weakened after just months in office and having wasted valuable political capital.

If Hilary Clinton or one of her Democratic rivals wins the Presidency their hard-nosed political judgment may steer them away from a potentially destructive collision with conservative opponents at a time when the country is crying out for a uniter and not a divider.

Let’s also not forget the 800lb gorilla in the US political system; the courts.

You can guarantee that any attempt at reform will prompt so-called family values activists to employ an army of lawyers to fight their battle in the courts at state and federal level.

Expect to see them walk up the forty-four steps of the Supreme Court at every opportunity in an attempt to have any changes deemed unconstitutional.

The Court has taken an increasingly conservative direction with the justices nominated by the Bush administration, and ultimately has the power to strike down any law, state or federal.

There is still plenty of reason for optimism if a Democrat wins and maybe not the despair that many felt in 2004 if a Republican claims victory in the race.

If President Bush vetoes the Matthew Shepard Act on hate crimes or the latest Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), then resurrected versions may stand far more of a chance under a Democratic Presidency – assuming of course the party can maintain control of Congress.

The news on the Republican side may not hold too much to fear for gays and lesbians.

The GOP frontrunners are a liberal-leaning New Yorker who supports civil unions, an Arizona senator who once denounced evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell as one of America’s “agents of intolerance,” a former Governor of Massachusetts who once claimed in a 1994 Senate race that he would be a stronger supporter of gay rights than Ted Kennedy and a non-church going former actor who champions states’ rights (and tacitly their right to introduce gay marriage) who recently told Fox News “we ought to be a tolerant nation.”

That is not to say the Republicans are likely to mount a campaign with any overt support of gay rights issues but a rollback to the Bush ’04 agenda emboldened by solid backing from the evangelical Right seems unlikely.

Demands for a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage appear to have fallen off the political radar.

The GOP frontrunners know they have to promote a moderate, less divisive vision to present an electable alternative to the unpopular later years of the Bush Presidency.

The evangelical movement is not dead and buried by any stretch of the imagination but it is already feeling marginalised in the 2008 nomination process.

It also looks at if the era of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” may be coming to an end regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican is commander-in-chief.

It may not be the first priority for a new President fearful of a conservative backlash, but change could be inevitable.

The reality of a shortage of troops to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the experience of other countries – including most countries in Europe as well as Israel, Australia and Canada – who allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, may bring change for pragmatic reasons rather than any commitment to equality.

Rudy Giuliani cannot realistically favour reform of the current policy if he wants the GOP nomination, but he has used a form of language that does not rule it out.

It was the military who were at the forefront of the battle to stop President Clinton lifting the ban in 1993, but many former generals including John M. Shalikashvili, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, now support an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Polling the voting intentions of gay and lesbians can be notoriously difficult but most indicators show strong support for Democrat candidates, and for Hilary Clinton in particular.

It will be heartwarming for many of us to have the most powerful woman or man in the world as a supporter.

A message of tolerance and acceptance from whoever wins next year will be a welcome change for many LGBT Americans who felt alienated by the Bush administration, but the evidence of the recent past clearly demonstrates that warm words are not enough.

When Bill Clinton was elected many gays and lesbians rejoiced at the prospect of a new beginning with a champion in the White House.

Having an ally may make us feel good but it does not bring legislative change.

The euphoria of Clinton’s victory was short-lived after the disastrous handling of the efforts to end the ban on gays in the military, his inability to gain congressional support for ENDA despite his strong personal backing, and his endorsement of DOMA.

The Clintons enjoy huge support from prominent activists but his legacy in terms of advancing the rights of gays and lesbians is mixed regardless of his good intentions.

In 2008 the gubernatorial, congressional, and state legislature elections may prove to be more important for the rights of America’s gays and lesbians than whoever triumphs in the race for the White House.

The power to bring about change does not reside in the Oval Office.

It is in the hands of lawmakers and judges in the nation’s capital and across the fifty states that make up the United States of America.