Obamanejad kowtows before the new American Ayatollah

OK, so the title of this post is a bit of an exaggeration. But I'm still really pissed that Obama is having Rick Warren deliver the invocation at his inauguration.

First of all, as everyone knows, Warren is a big crusader against gay rights. That is bad (and, interestingly, it's not the first time Obama has cozied up to gay-bashers). Fewer people probably know that Rick Warren called for the assassination of Iran's President Ahmadinejad on Fox News. Isn't that a little like singing "Bomb Bomb Iran"?

And then there's the fact that Warren screwed Obama over during the campaign, by holding a debate that was heavily biased toward McCain. Apparently Obama's hasn't given up the attempt to kiss some Warren boo-tay.

I understand what Obama is trying to do here - he's trying to send a message to America that he isn't Bush, that Red America will not be marginalized and denigrated during his tenure the way Blue America was during Bush's. Obama is trying to be a true uniter, and save America from cultural civil war, and I totally support that goal. I'm just not sure Rick Warren is the way to do it.

Every decade or so, America's Politico-Christianist movement (mostly conservative Southern Baptists allied with a smattering of independent megachurches throughout the West and Midwest) picks a new Ayatollah - a Grand Cleric who holds forth on mostly political matters. It was Falwell, and then it was Robertson, and then it was Dobson, and now it's Warren. They all follow the same pattern, too - each new Ayatollah starts off dealing with family counseling and lifestyle issues, portrays himself as a "kinder, gentler alternative" to his hardline predecessor, and then quietly transitions to gay-bashing and Republican fundraising. Warren has pretty much acknowledged that this is exactly what he's doing, claiming that the main differences between himself and Dobson is one of tone, not of substance.

The tragedy here is that plenty of American Christians don't believe that gay-bashing and Republican fund-raising are the core of the Christian religion. Nor do they believe that environmentalism, poverty reduction, or any of the other "religious left" issues (which Rick Warren labels "Marxism") are the core of the Christian religion. They believe that the core of the Christian religion has nothing to do with politics, but rather is a personal spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ. And political Ayatollahs like Rick Warren are selling those Christians short.

The way to unite America is not to accommodate smirking right-wing theocrats. It's to recognize the important role that religion plays in people's lives, while also recognizing that America the nation is a cooperative effort among people of all beliefs. Please, Mr. Obama, send Rick Warren home.