Some on DU don't seem to be getting it - so here is my take on the Warren issue.
What is an invocation anyway?
Wikipedia says this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InvocationAs a supplication or prayer it implies to call upon God (snip). When a person calls upon a god or goddess to ask for something (protection, a favor, his/her spiritual presence in a ceremony, etc.) or simply for worship, this can be done in a pre-established form or with the invoker's own words or actions.
Why should President-elect Obama allow someone who has blatantly supported actions against a minority of our U.S. population to give us in his own words an invocation for his future Administration? Doesn't that slap one of our group of GLBT in the Democratic Party right in the face? I think it is very inappropriate to give Rick Warren a place of honor because of this and so does this man:
Rick Warren and Prop 8 -- He Knows Better
by Randall Balmer - Randall Balmer is a blogger for Beliefnet's Progressive Revival, an Episcopal priest, Professor of American Religious History at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a Visiting Professor at Yale Divinity School. He is the author of a dozen books, including "Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America" and, most recently, "God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randall-balmer/rick-warren-and-prop-8_b_137908.htmlWarren has done a great deal to recast the social agenda of evangelicals to bring it more into line with the teachings of Jesus as well as the noble precedent of nineteenth-century evangelical activism, which invariably took the part of those on the margins of society. Warren is no fan of the Religious Right, and he recognizes that it is inappropriate for people of faith in a pluralistic society to impose their will on others simply by majoritarian fiat.
So that is why I found his announcement on October 23 that he supports California's Proposition 8 so disturbing. Proposition 8, a ballot initiative, seeks to overturn the California supreme court's ruling that gay marriage is constitutionally permissible.
Warren has every right to his views on the definition of marriage, which he insists (not without foundation) is mandated in the Bible. Millions of Americans -- a majority, I'm sure -- agree with him. "If you believe what the Bible says about marriage," he declared on his website, "you need to support Proposition 8."
Warren goes on to note that, by his reckoning, gays and lesbians make up only 2 percent of the population in the United States. "We should not let 2 percent of the population change the definition of marriage."
Warren, a Baptist, knows better. The cornerstones of the Baptist tradition are adult baptism (as opposed to infant baptism) and the principle of liberty of conscience and the separation of church and state. Baptists inherited these ideas from Roger Williams, the founder of the Baptist tradition in America. And, at least until the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1979, Baptists have always been watchmen on that wall of separation and fierce guardians of liberty of conscience. Thankfully, Williams's ideas were incorporated into the United States Constitution, both in the First Amendment, which forbade a religious establishment, and in the recurring principle of respect for the rights of minorities.
These have been the guiding touchstones of American life for more than two centuries. We Americans have sought, at times better than others, to live up to the principles articulated in our charter documents, especially in safeguarding the rights and the interests of minorities -- though not perfectly, by any means. The scourge of slavery and segregation and discrimination remains an indelible blot, and our treatment of women has been cavalier. But we Americans eventually rise to our better selves and come around to recognize the claims of legal equality for those who, for reasons of gender or race or religion or sexual orientation, cannot number themselves part of the majority.
And if we needed further warrant for this, the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection under law" codified that into the Constitution itself.
Many Americans, myself included, understand the California supreme court's decision (and similar rulings in other jurisdictions) as an expression of that principle, an expansion of civil rights to those who have been denied equality for a very long time. It's not at all at odds with fundamental Baptist principles of liberty and protection from a majoritarian ethic that imposes its standards on the minority.
I challenge Rick Warren, my friend and fellow evangelical, to reconsider his support for Proposition 8. Warren and all people of faith have every right to hold to their religious views about homosexuality. But to insist that those standards must be observed by everyone in a pluralistic society is -- well, it's not Baptist.
Rick Warren knows better.
............
Do we stand with the 14th Amendment or not? I for one ask for removal from this invocation by this man for that reason alone!
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