Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Wingspan Responds to Warren Announcement - TAKE ACTION

Wingspan's friend (as well as The Observer's) Jim Burroway of BoxTurtleBulletin.com was one one of the first bloggers out of the gate to comment on Dr. Rick Warren being chosen to give the invocation at Obama's inauguration. Please take action today and email:

  • parag.mehta@ptt.gov (Parag Mehta is Obama’s LGBT liaison in the transition team.)
  • dnoble@barackobama.com
  • bbond@barackobama.com
  • steve@hildebrandtewes.com (Steve Hildebrandt)
  • fred.hochberg@ptt.com
  • You can also contact Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office. She chaired the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies and made the announcement.

    As Jim reported in his blog:

    The New York Times’ Katharine Seelye has is reporting that Rick Warren, the pastor at Saddleback Church, has been chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to deliver the invocation at the inaugural ceremony.

    This is the same Rick Warren who recently said that the relationships of his “many gay friends” are no different from child rape, incest or polygamy. He also jumped on the paranoia bandwagon surrounding same-sex marriage by falsely claiming that Prop 8’s failure somehow would have overturned the Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and religion. (It can’t. No law or state constitution can.).

    Warren himself has acknowledged that the only difference between himself and Focus On the Family’s James Dobson is just “a matter of tone.” So given President-elect Obama’s stated commitment to bringing the country together, it’s hard to fathom the reasoning behind choosing such a divisive figure. What’s worse, this decision to include Warren is revives memories of the controversy surrounding ex-gay advocate Donnie McClurkin’s participation in a Obama campaign event in South Carolina during the primaries. This announcement will certainly be taken as another punch in the gut.

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