Obama picks Rick Warren for inaugural invocation

[Deckard]

Having been reading and listening to more of Warren's views, I have to say I'm growing less and less bothered by Obama's decision than I was before. Clearly I think Warren's reasoning is fundamentally wrong, and I still feel frustrated knowing that he wouldn't have been invited if he was appearing to compare African-American marriages to paedophilia - but as I said, there's worse out there than him. On that point, I just watched the clip in which he apparently 'equated gay marriage with paedophilia and incest'....

"The issue to me, I'm not opposed to that as much as I'm opposed to redefinition of a 5,000 year definition of marriage. I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage."

When asked whether he views these things as "equivalent" to gay marriage, he answers: yes.

So is he suggesting gay marriage is as bad as paedophilia, and by extension, gay married couples are no better than paedophiles? It might seem that way from invoking that equivalence - and yet, I'm not so sure that's really what he necessarily meant to suggest. I don't think we can be so quick to assume that he views gays and paedophiles as equally sinful, which is what much of the media coverage of this has implied. He may have just meant that when it comes to the definition of marriage, anything other than a grown man and woman is equally unqualified.

I guess the fact that Warren is clearly a charismatic speaker, has been receiving a lot of exposure, and was already known for his remarks on the Terri Schiavo furor, fewor, furoooooor.... controversy.... has made it easy to cast him as the great bête noire. Which frankly just furnishes him with too much credit.

(We all know Jody Wisternoff should take some of it too )