Obama, Warren and America

Hey Rev. Smith
President elect Obama will make plenty of decisions you won't agree with. Prepare yourself now...As you have said plenty of times over, He (OBAMA) is not the Christ, so as men are he will be. And please remember all the many members of your church that have purchased and supported Rick Warrens book "Purpose Driven Life" regardless of what is stated in the bylaws at his church.

Just my thoughts, Just my thoughts

Well Put Dr Smith! The bottom line is God loves all of his children. Some find it difficult to believe that because certain individuals want to feel superior and more special than others. The church sounds like a private social club with criteria to meet to be a member. I wonder if Jesus came back would meet the minimum qualifications to even get into this church? Hmmmm

Hey Rev Sue! You are "on it" again! I find Obama's choice of Warren out of pocket too! By distancing himself from pastor Wright, Obama got himself into a political correctness of Teflon proportions.

Pastor Wright commented on Obama early on in the candidacy, he said something like this, "He (Obama) happens to be a politician with principles." Those principles drove him to make a hard politically correct decision birthed by a media-contrived smear. Anyone who has served under Dr. Wright knows that he is not divisive. However, it is unfortunate that much of Eurocentric thought is dichotomous in its reasoning. When Stokely Carmichael said "Black Power" some heard that as divisive and anti white. Stokely called for Black Power--that's all just as Dr. Karenga called for Black Unity through the principles of Kwanzaa. When Dr. Wright's sermon bites were looped and spun by CNN and others, he became the weapon of choice to derail Obama. The spin doctors were not successful. The National Press Club became a co-conspirator in the mudfest. The entire strategy read like the same playbook that dogged the steps of Dr. King, Evers, Clayton-Powell and TBA. Do you find it interesting that Obama now has a boatload of advisors and pundits--more than any president to date on how to straighten out a banged-up greed-scorched America? Isn't it interesting that everybody seems to know what he ought to be doing to get this country on the right foot when the present lame-duck administration dissed advice with abandon.

Perhaps president-elect Obama is being politically safe by having Warren for the invocation--he is white and has mass appeal except from those he excludes. The Jesus I know and love excluded nobody. Maybe this is what Howard Thurman meant when suggesting that some religion seems to be "about" Jesus as opposed to "of" Jesus. Yes, Warren's books have helped millions to grasp PURPOSE by the horns and his work in Africa is second to none, but I am not surprised by his being chosen to safely do the invocation. It is unfortunate that Dr. Wright was smeared with a brand of dogma that he neither espouses or practices. It was Dr. Wright's ministry and preaching that gave Obama the audacity to HOPE. I HOPE Obama remembers from whence that audacity came!!!!!!!

Ozzie Smith

Fitz, you have made no credible argument against gay marriage. Just what is wrong with gay people? Why is being gay bad? Please tell us, or just shut up. Just shut up please.

You have not made a single argument against gay marriage. Just what awful things do you expect to happen if gay marriage is made legal?

Are you afraid that there will be more gay people? There won't be. Are you afraid that there will be more gay couples? There won't be.

Are you afraid that the divorce rate will go up? that there will be more unwed mothers? that there will be more abortions? I am just waiting for you to blame all these things on gay people.

How would gay marriage hurt you? How would it hurt any individual? How would it hurt children? How would it interfere with mothers and fathers caring for their children?

If you don't know any gay people at all now, what makes you think that you would know any after gay marriage is made legal?

Barak Obama will be President of the United States in just a few more days. Did such a thing ever seem even remotely plausible, even a short time ago? I would never, never in a million years have guessed that this could happen. People made up a lot of lies about him, but he won anyway; he defeated the lies.

It is the same with gay marriage. Just a few short years ago, the subject was taboo, and would only raise mocking eyebrows, or smirky giggles.

Now, people like Rick Warren are afraid, genuinely afraid of the prospect of gay marriage, so afraid that they would risk their reputations, to more openly anti-gay than they might otherwise have been.

This is very good news. Just the prospect of equality for gay people makes homophobic people afraid and therefore more respectful. Gay marriage cannot be discussed reasonably or rationally, because people are frightened of it; people like Fitz do not mock and belittle gay people anymore, but rather work strenuously to promote one set of lies, and then when those don't go over very well, they just promote another set. It is sad.

But one by one, their sad arguments go "plop" in the face of the overpowering and unstoppable movement for gay marriage, whose time has now come. I have pretty good confidence that Obama will be the one, who finally, once and for all, will lead the American people along to a greater acceptance of gay people, when they probably would rather not go along with it.

Fitz4 wrote:

Rev Warrens Church no more says “gay people are not welcome as members” as any mainstream Christian Church like Catholicism says gay people, masturbators, divorcees, or fornicators are not welcome as members.

_______________________________

Oh, yeah? Try walking hand in hand with your gay partner in any Baptist Church in the South, into any Irish Catholic Church in the Northeast, or into the Mormon Seminary at BYU. They'll show you their version of God's love and acceptance.

Neochristians use gays as another scapegoat just as Nixon and Reagan used the Communists. It's right out of Hitler's playbook:

1. Find a common enemy in the minority.
2. Blame all the world's problems on them
3. Rally the mindless lemmings into a frenzy.
4. Exploit the group mentality through fear and hatred of a common enemy.

How about picking on divorce lawyers instead? They're a bigger threat to hetrosexual marriages than gays are. Oh, yes, that's right - most of them are rich white neochristian Republicans.

"Christians" who spend more time hating, excluding and bashing gays than spreading the love of Jesus are an abomination to his name.
Jesus would not claim these as his followers. They are, instead, greedy, political neochristians. How much time does Warren spend spreading the love of Jesus compared to the time he spends gay bashing?

Thanks Sue for telling the truth in such an intelligent and thoughtful manner. The truth really is the light and you shining it.

The "Black Liberationist" Reverend who made excuses for the racist Reverend Wright can't find it in her heart to tolerate another intolerant pompous evangelical - this time a white one.

Thank you Rev. Smith, as always you bring a a voice of sense and sensibility!

I think the invocation of any event is by definition to call upon a God or higher being with a focused outcome in mind, for inspiration, blessing, or support; a prayer of entreaty, as often done beginning at a religious service of worship. To be “fair” organized religion is not the only place an invocation happens. It can also be an incantation used in conjuring or summoning a devil. Invocation can be from the spiritual to the magical to the metaphysical. Not always a “holy” event. A case in point, the Klu Klux Klan began every meeting with an invocation, why they even used the cross in their ritual terrorism against Black and Jews!

My point, the invocation done at any event has a purpose. President –elect Obama has stated, "I am a fierce advocate of equality for gay and lesbian Americans. It is something that I have been consistent on, and I intend to continue to be consistent on during my presidency. What I've also said is that it is important for America to come together, even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues."

But the sad truth is this, the invitation of Rick Warren further elevates someone who has in recent weeks actively promoted legalized discrimination and denigrated the lives and relationships of millions of gay and lesbian Americans.

So if Mr. Obama wanted to choose someone who did not reflect the values on which he campaigned, but supported the Religious Right, opposes a woman having a legal right to choose, opposes stem-cell research and other domestic and social agendas then why not someone who is not the political lightning rod that Warren has divisively become?

So the invitation leaves me scratching my head. Change? Hope? Our moment is now? Yes we can? Not so sure any more.

This I know is true, no member of the KKK could do an invocation for me, and no religious leader that has the social agenda of Rick Warren could either. But that’s just me…

God loves everybody! God loves EVERYBODY!

Spelllady08 – No, I don’t think I misunderstood Rev Smith or you.

When you talk in absolute terms about “Obama and his hypocrisy against the principles that he stands for” and his decisions speaking “volumes” it’s clear you think you know exactly what Obama’s motives are, without interest or openness to anything else Obama might have to say on the subject. To me, this makes you close minded. Obama does one thing you don’t understand and/or don’t approve of and he’s out. You build a case only for why he’s wrong and demand that he change or lose your favor. It sounds like something right out of the fundamentalist playbook.

TBARKSDL (WRITES)
“imagine if Lyndon Johnson had given a prominent role in his 1964 inauguration to the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. “
&
“I hope the idea of LBJ's inviting the KKK Grand Dragon to his inauguration shows the phoniness behind the "big tent" rationalization.”
The problem with arguments from analogy is that there power comes from mere analogy. Its weight raises and falls on the strength of the analogy.

Race is not sex & neither is who you have sex with. Neither is it revolution from a colonial power, nor chattel slavery, - and the rest. All strained and incredulous mere analogies.

Courts have been quick to dismiss this characterization of marriage law with racial segregation. The point of anti—miscegenation laws were to keep the races apart. No one would seriously argue that that is the point of marriage law. Quite the opposite, the intention of marriage law is to bring the two sexes together.

Note this quick rebuke of same-sex “marriage” offered by the plurality in Hernandez v. New York, Justice Smith, when confronting the idea that marriage as historically defined was analogous to Loving.

“[T]he traditional definition of marriage is not merely a byproduct of historical injustice. Its history is of a different KIND.”

The use of the term kind is telling. Not a matter of degree, mind you. Rather a different of qualitative substance…a difference of KIND.

As dismissals of the Loving v Virginia case goes, this is rather mild. However – I like it for precisely that reason. It dismisses casually an analogy that doesn’t hold up precisely because it is not the same KIND of things being compared.

OR
"Marriage is neither a conservative nor a liberal issue; it is a universal human institution, guaranteeing children fathers, and pointing men and women toward a special kind of socially as well as personally fruitful sexual relationship. Gay marriage is the final step down a long road America has already traveled toward deinstitutionalizing, denuding and privatizing marriage. It would set in legal stone some of the most destructive ideas of the sexual revolution: There are no differences between men and women that matter, marriage has nothing to do with procreation, children do not really need mothers and fathers, the diverse family forms adults choose are all equally good for children. What happens in my heart is that I know the difference. Don't confuse my people, who have been the victims of deliberate family destruction, by giving them another definition of marriage."

Walter Fauntroy- Former DC Delegate to Congress Founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus Coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s march on DC

Fitz speaks from a point of view of superiority over millions and millions of people. He is eaten up and consumed with his superiority.

But he is not superior to gay people, or to anyone else. How even does he get the nerve to assert such superiority? His whole argument is an insult to millions and millions of people. That is how it is with Fitz who seeks to defend Rick Warren, and that is how it is with Rick Warren.

I don't really care one way or the other about Rick Warren. He is an easier enemy to defeat than Pat Robertson or James Dobson. That is all I really think of him. Say the invocation, or don't say it; that does not effect the increasing irrelevance of his position on gays.

In fact his position is antquated, and needs to be over-turned by all good and thinking people. The fact is, that there is nothing wrong with being gay; it is not an abomination or a defect; gay people are "just another group." It is only the backward people who persist in making it a big deal.

The right-wing religious extremists may think this issue of gay marriage is settled in California and elsewhere; but they are wrong; the issue is far from settled; I have confidence that President Obama will help lead the American people to gradual acceptance of this, even though they may not like it, just as Lyndon Johnson did with the Votings Right Act; it was overall, an unpopular measure, but President Johnson chose to do what was right rather than what was popular.

Right and wrong has nothing to do with "wisom of the ages" or tradition, or how things have always been done, or mass popularity. It takes courage to confront false doctrines of ones own religion, but on a matter as important at this, I am afraid that alot of people are going to have to figure out some way to suck up their courage and do it.

Amen!

All I can say is, Amen.

I have posted the idea that, to understand the implications of Obama's invitation to Warren, imagine if Lyndon Johnson had given a prominent role in his 1964 inauguration to the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. I raised this theoretical idea specifically in response to the plethora of commentators who justify Warren's role under the "big tent" rubric: it's always a good thing, they argue, to reach out to people with differing viewpoints, even to those who might oppose your position. Let everybody have a voice. Unity is better than divisiveness. Unity, in fact, trumps everything.

I hope the idea of LBJ's inviting the KKK Grand Dragon to his inauguration shows the phoniness behind the "big tent" rationalization. It would have been seen as palpable nonsense for the KKK to be given a role in an inauguration in the midst of the Civil Rights battle, all in the name of unity. In fact, it still would. No American would be taken seriously if he argued that giving the KKK, or any extremist voice, a seat at the table in the name of unity trumped all other considerations. On the contrary. The right and moral thing to do would be to explicitly deny such voices a role in an inauguration.

But in addition to this general argument, I also have specific words of Warren in mind. Those are the ones in which Warren offered a list of partnerships that he believed would be wrong: "a brother and sister being together, an older guy marrying a child and a guy having multiple wives."

Comparing gay relationships to incest, child sexual exploitation, and bigamy, in my opinion, is the equivalent of referring to blacks with the "N" word. It bespeaks a bigoted mind and a bigoted outlook. It's bigotry, no less than the bigotry exhibited by those who openly call for discrimination against blacks. Neither viewpoint should be given legitimacy in America.

To those who argue that Warren is part of mainstream America, let me remind you of something I have a feeling that you and many other Americans have forgotten, or never knew: The KKK was once considered a respectable organization, and not just by flaming racist fanatics. The KKK had widespread support among "respectable" Americans. The KKK regularly marched in civic parades, and not just in the South.

And let me make my central point again: We decent Americans relegated the once respectable, mainstream KKK to the margins of this society, not by inviting them into the tent in the name of unity, but by kicking them out of the tent and telling them never to return. Rick Warren, with his hateful characterization of gays, has shown himself as just one more bigot. I could not care less that many "respectable" Americans worship at his feet, any more than I care that many Americans still consider the KKK respectable. It's time to put the Rick Warrens of the world on the dust bin of history, just like we did the other bigots, the KKK.

EFavorite, I don't think you really understood what the article was truly about...no one can really know how Obama feels about Warren except for Obama himself and the people with whom he is the closest, Pastor Smith is not saying that at all. The only way that we as the citizens can judge how he feels is by his decisions and the people that he chooses to surround himself with, and Mr. Obama, that decision says volumes. What Rev. Sue is talking about is Obama and his hypocrisy against the principles that he stands for. Obama's treatment of Rev. Wright, whether you view it as right or wrong, was based on the fact that Obama does not stand for divisiveness, and he did not want to associate himself with someone whom the PUBLIC judged as being about exclusivity (although anyone who knows anything about the teachings of Jeremiah Wright knows that is not the truth). But, no where in Trinity UCC's bylaws does it say that white people can't be members, or anyone else. There is nothing in Rev. Wright's sermons that say certain groups of people should be considered inferior to anyone else. So, if Obama stands for the principle that we should be an inclusive nation, yet chooses a pastor who has an open message of exclusivity, what does Obama really stand for? I completely agree with Rev. Sue, if Obama is going to take a stand for something, then he needs to be an advocate of that at all times, not just when it is politically convenient to do so. If Obama chose to separate himself from his pastor and spiritual mentor because of 2 minute video clips which were taken completely out of context, then he needs to take that same stand and separate himself from Rick Warren, who openly opposes gay rights, and compares gay marriage to incest and pedophilia among many other things, Rick Warren who has an actual section in the bylaws of his church that gay people are not allowed to be members. How dare Rick Warren decide who can and can't be a member of his church, whose purpose is supposed to be bringing souls to God. Maybe God should decide that Rick Warren shouldn't be allowed into heaven because he kept His children out of His church, and therefore was not living the word of God. How can President-elect Obama say that he does not stand for divisiveness when Rick Warren is openly divisive and exclusive? I don't know about anyone else, but that decision doesn't give me much faith in Obama's principle of inclusion, because through that action, he is supporting exclusion. Throughout the campaign Obama spoke a message of hope and change, which I believe he can bring to this country. But if Obama is going to support a principle that is so important to him that he banishes people from his life because of it, then he needs to take a stand at ALL times, even when it may not be popular to do so.

Susan, Thank you for your candid and insightful article. You have articulated what I have been feeling. Peace

But I mean, hey, if you wanna claim it's a child-rearing contest, I'll take that bet. Imagine what virtuous young pups you could raise if you weren't trying to take *my* kids away and instead paying attention to your own damn clergy and men in general.

Ready? Set?

"Your felt need for enclusion directly implicates goverment & the law."

I think you're the one unclear on the distinction between your religious commandments and my religious rights, if you can't even spell your own sentence.

Trust me, I know how this plays out, however you want to blame my committed partnership for 'divinely ordained mariage' failing half the time, and the more so the more Fundie it gets.

I'm an American. My dear one is an American.

That's all you need to know.

If you don't want to know any more about us, give us that.

Paganplace

i'm really having a hard time figuring out what you are trying to say...

I did catch this however..

"Well, what *I* think, is you lot *demanded* that we be governed by malicious screwups on the basis of your 'opinion' what goes on in my house and how important it is to you... Twice."

Apparently you and your "lot" are not content on "what goes on in my house and how important it is to [me]"

You have a felt need for it to be publicly endorsed & subsidized.

Indeed you have gone beyond even this and seem to be insisting that it be convoluted with a foundational social insitution that brings men & women together so as to provide them with their Mothers & Fathers.

This is to the good of the men & women themselves, their children and all of society.

This is what Rev Warren believes and Pres. elect Obama has stated...

Your felt need for enclusion directly implicates goverment & the law.

Hence it is subject to democratic action.

I mean, you wanna know the *real* hypocrisy? Don't try to put it back on me. Alls I ever said was that the finance companies and credit agencies are like the Mob:if they aren't into you for a *little* something, you're nobody.

But I haven't been offering any advice we haven't taken for ourselves all these years.

We did not do as Bush and the candidates of you right-wing Fundies happen to have said we all must:

Borrow and spend.

I'm sure that if we can get a home loan you'll say it's unfair and we queers are getting preferential trreatment, but actually,

We're just not in the hole.

Cause we didn't believe you.

Nothing has happened here that we 'durn libruls' didn't warn you about.

Auto industry crashing? Until the very moment gas prices spiked, I was being called a Commie for mentioning that sticking a 'Jesus Fish' on an Escalade wasn't going to work out so well.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

But apparently my genitals were too interesting for the 'holy.' I'm sure you'll find more ways to turn it around. I'm already seeing it.

"I refute this in my comment by pointing out that no Christian religion “excludes” homosexuals except to say that they (like all) cannot engage in sexual activity outside of marriage."

Well, what *I* think, is you lot *demanded* that we be governed by malicious screwups on the basis of your 'opinion' what goes on in my house and how important it is to you... Twice.

And cried out for it a third time.

I think Rev. Warren should be allowed to speak.

Cause he cheated for more of the same, and cause he *lost,* and cause while we spend the next several years struggling through the unnecessary mess of what you and he convinced everyone to *vote for,*

Well, I want there to be no mistake.

Whatever you lot do next.

I want you on *record* what you think is supposed to happen next.

Cause the *next* time you decide my sexuality, or whatever you next decide is to blame for your own screwed-up policies of scapegoating is worth crumbling a nation over....

I want to have read about it in high school classics.

Did me a world of good this time.

Take the mike, Christian.

Tape's rolling.

I don't care about Warren speaking at Obama's inauguration, it is a fact of life that liberals are more tolerant than conservatives. Warren might have been more appropriate to speak at the first Bush inauguration, given Bush I's views:

"No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." - George H.W. Bush, (R) as Presidential Nominee for the Republican party; 1987-AUG-27

Paganplace
The subject of the post is Christianity as expressed by Rev Warren. The author of the post is The Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith, senior pastor of Advent United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio
In it she writes

”since he desires to distance himself from incendiary types, I think he should "uninvite" Pastor Warren to do the invocation. Too many people know that, at the hands of Warren, they would be excluded from the presence of God.”

I refute this in my comment by pointing out that no Christian religion “excludes” homosexuals except to say that they (like all) cannot engage in sexual activity outside of marriage.

Now you, as your name denotes (paganplace) are not a Christian. You may not like the religion, believe in any God, or insist that they all adjust to your preferences. However your critique is simply not a refutation of the thrust of my critique of Dr, Smith’s post.

What it is- is a critique of the Christian sexual ethic.

I think Jim Wallis, for example, would have been a much better choice to do the invocation.

I mean, really. *I* wouldn't think me being queer was that big a deal.

Only, to my observation, in the entire history of human endeavor...

Have so few...

Made such a big disaster

Out of so much

For so many

As you lot have made over who I snuggle with.

If I could be in DC for the inauguration, I'd prefer to be there at the back door of the White House while Dubya makes his exit, after all the screwups he parlayed schoolyard BS into ...to mess up the *entire world.*

With one sign.

It's say.

"Nice going, smart guy. You broke it."

I really. *don't* get it. Apparently no 'sacrifice' is too small... for *you* to perpetrate on queers... to validate your *exceptionally disastrous* political choices that are supposed to have had something to do with *my* 'virginity.' In an overpopulated world. That you don't like.

Catch me up, here.

Or, to make it simple.

I'm curious how it is *your* 'sanctity' has something to do with my unwilling acceptance od penises.

When you don't even *like* sex in your religion.

Also, pardon me highlighting *this,* but:

"The Christian sexual ethic requires sacrifice among the whole of its congregation. Different people are asked unique sacrifice at various moments in life. This is to Gods greater glory and to mankind’s salvation."

Listen. Sport.

If your God demands I have sex with people I might find it an utter violation so to do with, as long as they're male, while demanding the United States government mess with my dear one's credit rating and job prospects over *your* idea that sexual continence according to celibate priests is a worthy 'sacrifice' (of what, again?) ...Well, I guess that's very consistent with what some priests demanded of a queer girl no one would listen to anyway, but, I'm not seeing how the God that wants me on that 'altar of sacrifice' is the *good guy*.

Maybe there's some clause in your 'definition of marriage' that accounts for me to make the 'sacrifice' to your God involving me getting knocked up by some man that might despise and beat me being more 'holy' than me and my sweetie's comfy and content little life of trying to make sure Monsanto doesn't sterilize all the *seed grain* before their shares tank?

I mean, hey, there's really nothing 'new' or *eternal* in your institutionalized bigotries.

The only innovation is in *claiming* the bigotries are eternal. That's cause a long time ago, someone invented the 'book' and certain people were very impressed.

"All this is to say is that Warrens Saddleback Church has stayed true to the Christian sexual ethic. This ethic is a well established and central tenet of Christianity."

Being brutal, trivial, ignorant, and wrong for fifteen hundred years doesn't mean it's any less brutal, trivial, ignorant, and wrong.

" Unlike the black liberation theology of Jeremiah Wright that has no historical antecedent. (except white superiority “christianist” movement in post Jim Crow south)"

Funny you should mention that.

Hrmm.

But, maybe if you believe that, you could stop trying to equate modern tree-huggers with a hegemonic empire that for some reason seems to have, according to some, been obsessed with persecuting Judaic rebels with no historical antecedents.

Not to say the Christian myth is without precedent, but *usually* Christianists claim that the idea it's *without* precedent is the very reason for its authority over who I snuggle with justifying deregulating the financial sector.

Do pick a 'side.'

"Here is what's bothering me about Pastor Rick Warren doing the invocation for President-elect Obama's inauguration.

"It reeks of hypocrisy."

Not Obama's, though.

Obama promised to give everyone a voice.

Even right-wing Fundies.

What they choose to *do* with it is on them.

Let no one say any different.

This isn't on Obama.

This is on those who would have no other but the likes of Warren.

Now they can't complain they didn't get to play, when the ball's in *their* court on this.

Of course, I'd much rather my Christian neighbors repudiated the man and all he says about me, but.

Here's your chance, if that's how you feel.

Dr. Susan K. Smith (writes)
"No, Mr. Warren's church espouses exclusivity: gay people are not welcome as members. It says so in their church by laws."

Another example of the practiced obviation of the “spiritual” left.

Rev Warrens Church no more says “gay people are not welcome as members” as any mainstream Christian Church like Catholicism says gay people, masturbators, divorcees, or fornicators are not welcome as members.

All this is to say is that Warrens Saddleback Church has stayed true to the Christian sexual ethic. This ethic is a well established and central tenet of Christianity. Unlike the black liberation theology of Jeremiah Wright that has no historical antecedent. (except white superiority “christianist” movement in post Jim Crow south)

The Christian sexual ethic requires sacrifice among the whole of its congregation. Different people are asked unique sacrifice at various moments in life. This is to Gods greater glory and to mankind’s salvation.

What scares me isn't just that Warren wants gay folks to think that they are undeserving of gods love (Some Amish believe that people who drive cars are undeserving but they don't try to pass anti car legislation, they just refuse to drive cars) it's that Warren believes that gay folk are undeserving of even the basics of human life, of which unions are only a symbol of. What he takes from us is hope.

The audacity, come to find out, is that Obama's "Hope" excludes all gay people. His choice of spiritual leader, icon, blessed blesser is a man who believes gay love is the same as incest, child abuse and polygamy.

You know exactly how you feel about the unfair treatment of Jeremiah Wright, a minister in your same UCC tradition. Fine. However, you can’t know just how Obama feels about Warren, though you seem to– -- You think that Obama should want distance himself from such an incendiary type. You deign that his treatment of Warren should be like what you interpret his treatment of Wright to be – even though it’s pretty clear that you don’t approve of how he treated Wright. I don’t understand your reasoning - Fair is fair? Tit for tat? It’s only logical?

Susan – maybe you don’t know just how Obama feels, and you may not know how God feels either. You may be mistaken about what God we need right now or even that we need a God. You might be wrong when you say, “Too many people know that, at the hands of Warren, they would be excluded from the presence of God.” Maybe most people listening to the Inaugural ceremonies won’t think or care much about how Warren is affecting their standing with God. (Can any minister even do that?) Maybe most people will be more focused on how their lives will be affected by a new Democratic administration.

Maybe you’re mad you didn’t get your way on this and are intellectualizing why you’re right, invoking, as ministers do, what god wants – at least what your god wants - the really fair, reasonable god.

I wonder – if Obama took your advice and uninvited Warren –would your God feel vindicated? And how would you feel?