The Rick Warren Controversy

I thought I’d say something about the Rick Warren-Obama inauguration flap. Obama has assigned the invocation at the ceremony to Reverend Rick Warren, pastor at the Saddleback church in California. This has gotten a lot of criticism because Warren was one of the main supporters of Prop. 8 in California. Warren is completely opposed to gay marriage and has equated it with incest and polygamy. (Melissa Etheridge claims he told her he regretted that choice of words and it's not the way he thinks. I’m a bit skeptical. Has he publicly disavowed these statements?)

I find the selection upsetting. To choose this man as the primary pastor presiding over the inauguration feels like a slap in the face not just to homosexuals, but to the principles of basic equality under the law. Obama has said that selecting Warren is about unity, about including people in a national conversation that others might disagree with. I get his point. True unity for the country means engaging people with whom you passionately disagree with and Rick Warren is a such a person. Unity, and real change, Obama is saying, is wrenching. I think, to have included Rick Warren among other pastors would have been exactly the right thing to do. He is an important member of the evangelical community and represents beliefs held by a sizeable percentage in this country. But giving him such a prime position is to associate him too closely with Obama’s vision for the entire country. I acknowledge that for Obama unity is an extremely important value. But I think that for me, basic rights are a bit more weighty on the scale. The decision feels against the spirit of inclusion and basic civil equality.

That said, I reserve final judgement on Obama. Symbols matter, but they are still only symbols. Obama’s ultimate test will be what substantive changes for gay rights he will achieve. If he were to get rid of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and even legalize civil unions, then none of this would matter.

I want to say something else about Rich Warren. In that video that I linked to above, Warren is also asked this:

Q: Which do you think is a greater threat to the American family? Divorce or gay marriage?

Warren: That’s a no brainer. Divorce. There’s no doubt about it.

Q: …So why do we hear so much more, especially from religious conservatives, about gay marriage than about divorce?

Warren: Oh, we always love to talk about other sins more than ours.

“A no brainer”! “We always love to talk about other sins more than ours”! I know he's still being intolerant of gay marriage, he still considers it a sin, but still, these are not statements I expect to hear from a figure on the religious right. Rick Warren is an interesting figure in American evangelical movement. I remember reading a New Yorker article on him a few years ago and he seemed like someone who was trying to move past the issues normally associated with the religious right. He focuses on poverty, HIV. He truly practices what he preaches: he reverse tithes, giving away 90% of what he makes. He seems much more reasonable, and positive, than someone like James Dobson or Jerry Falwell. He is not pathologically, and creepily, obsessed with issues of sexuality like others seem to be. Warren represents a more hopeful future for religious conservatism in this country. He is someone who needs to be engaged, not pushed away.