Barack Obama Hates Gays

I haven't been living with my head under a rock, I promise. I am aware of Pres-Elect Obama's choice of ultra crazy (and fat and sweaty) conservative minister Rick Warren to give a speech at his inauguration.

Is it horrible that I'm not at all offended by it?

Today in the Huffington Post, out loud-n-proud playwright Chris Durang has a touching, sad, angry diatribe.

Imagine if there was a fairly accomplished minister somewhere who had some good opinions on the environment and did some other good things, but he also just firmly believed that African Americans were inferior beings, that their brains were simply smaller or something. But lots of other things were good about him.

Would Obama invite him to the Inauguration? I doubt it. And I don't think he should. Maybe talk with him over coffee if you want to try to find common ground, but invite him to this celebration of Obama's election?

And you know what? I guess he has a point there. Either way, Obama is getting it from both ends. People are connecting him to Blago. His priestly selection thinks gays are worse than serial killers and rapists (gay rapists are a different story).

Really, sometimes I wonder why I don't get angrier about gay rights issues. I wasn't filled with rage about Prop 8. Probably because I see marriage as a broken tradition - the lemon jalopy of social relationships.

And this Warren business? Again, who cares? He's reaching across the aisle. Politics is politics. If you get the crazy who's in charge of the crazies to speak, that puts more crazies behind you.

My feelings are more in tune with those of CNN's Ruben Navarrette Jr.:

The tale gets more curious. Even as Obama takes fire from liberal friends on the left, Warren is taking his share of criticism from conservative supporters on the right who can't believe he is even associating with Obama, let alone appearing at his inauguration.

But what did either camp expect anyway? Those familiar with the evangelical movement in America should already know that Warren falls on the moderate portion of the spectrum. And, if gay rights activists are surprised that Obama would share the spotlight with an opponent of gay marriage, they need to do more research.

Obama himself has stated that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, a view that also happens to be shared by Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

He never said he supported gay marriage. He's spoken on disagreeing without being disagreeable. This isn't so out of character from what he's said all along. But either way, I really don't care. Maybe this is yet another reason to revoke my Gay Card (the first reason being that, until recently, I didn't know Liza Minelli was Judy Garland's daughter).

What are your thoughts?

xoJR