Sarah Posner reports that "Rick Warren, who just this week equated gay marriage with polygamy and incest, and who thinks that Christians who work for social justice are Marxists, will deliver the invocation at Obama's inauguration." She says she's "speechless." An argument can be made that Obama is using Warren Warren, after all, is the author of the best selling book of all time, and Obama's demonstrated respect for the preacher might build some level of rapport, or at least openness, with that community. But I doubt it. Rather, the benefits probably flow in the other direction. Warren's legitimacy as a mainstream figure grows. His status as the country's premiere religious leader is cemented. And he keeps telling his flock that the ideas Democrats hold make them Marxists and child murderers and advocates of the slippery slope to legalized incest. Obama's embrace of Warren might mean Obama's name is left out of the sermon, but will that be true for the next Democrat? Or the next? And so we'll have a situation where the preacher that Obama embraced is working aggressively to convince his flock to vote against Obama's would-be Democratic successors? There's a difference between reaching out to the evangelical community with respect and surrendering to it. Obama could have called on an Episcopalian or a Methodist or any number of more complicated and nuanced religious figures. Giving Warren this sort of political-religious opportunity effectively codifies his position as America's most politically important, and accepted, religious leader. That seems unwise, and unnecessary.
