Here's what I would like/hope Obama was saying to Rick Warren.

[CTyankee]

By inviting you to give an invocation at my Inaugural, I am putting you at the table. I am putting you there because I want none of this "opposition in exile" business in our country when I become President. I am the President of you and your followers as much as I am President of those who agree with me. I won't let you go off sullen and huddle in your misery with the others who cannot see the light of the new day in America. You, and every one of your followers, are part of the "one nation, indivisible," a nation that I am the leader of, like it or not.

I am not only inviting you to the Inaugural, I will be putting you on committees to help solve the problems our country faces, and they are serious indeed. Don't be afraid. You might -- you probably will -- develop a friendship or two with some of your co-committee members who happen to be gay. Hell, they may even invite you to dinner in their homes and you'll be able to meet their partners and kids and see that they have lives like everybody else.

Then maybe you'll go back to your fold and have a few doubts next time the tirade starts against gay people getting married. Oh, you may not say anything then but you may start to think about it. You'll think to yourself, "That's not the way I see my friends Joe and Bob or Mary and Ann."

And that will start your journey...