Antigay Pastor No Longer on Program for Inauguration
The presidential inaugural committee claims it knew nothing of the pastor's antigay sermon when it selected him to deliver the benediction, and now that pastor has withdrawn from the program.
ThinkProgress, which was first to uncover the sermon, reports that Louis Giglio in withdrawing didn't disavow the beliefs he laid out in that lengthy lesson from the mid 1990s, when he said being gay is a choice and a sin that merits eternal damnation and that Christianity can help gays can become straight. Instead, Giglio lashed out at those he said are trying to push an "agenda."
"Due to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration," Giglio said in a statement. "Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past fifteen years. Instead, my aim has been to call people to ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ."
This isn't the first time President Obama's selection to deliver an inaugural prayer has come under scrutiny for antigay comments, but it's the first time that scrutiny scuttled the program. Rick Warren was the selection in 2008, which riled LGBT activists because of the pastor's public support for Proposition 8. And Warren has gone on to make further antigay comments, most recently in an interview with Chelsea Clinton for NBC's Rock Center, in which he claimed it would be un-Christian to allow same-sex marriages.
http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2013/01/10/antigay-pastor-no-longer-program-inauguration
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Better to get it right the second time around then not at all I suppose.
= new reply since forum marked as read
It does seem like a pretty high bar to find pastors who have never said anything critical of gays before, right?
<<sarcasm> 
Why do religious people think they should have anything at all to say about how other people live their lives, choose their lovers, decide to bear a child, or why should these religious folks think they have so much power and influence over so many OTHER very personal decisions and feelings and behaviors in life? Why do these religious leadership folks want so desperately to control the lives of other human beings living amongst them?
These religious folks, by and large, seem to me to be about 50-600 years behind the rest of society.
GMAB
This is good news, but I will file it under "once is a mistake, twice is stupidity."
