![]() … That dialogue, I think, is part of what my campaign’s been all about - that we’re not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is to be able to create an atmosphere when we … can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans.”Īnd Rick Warren, despite his sincere, religiously based convictions that same-sex relations and marriage are morally wrong, has contributed millions to gays and other people suffering from AIDS and other causes helping the poor and the suffering. “It is important for Americans to come together, even though we may have disappointments on certain social issues. More importantly to me, Barack Obama has steadfastly lived up to his promises from the beginning of his campaign and just recently repeated when he explained his selection of Pastor Warren to deliver the Inaugural invocation: Kennedy when he authored Profiles in Courage. ![]() This is the definition of political courage made most famous by then-Sen. Barack Obama has shown himself to be a progressive Democrat who is sometimes prepared to take positions that counter the views of his most purist base - that is, when he is moved by conviction to do so. Regarding the president-elect, Barack Obama has proven to me over a long period of time, even more so in the weeks since the election, that he is a man who says what he means and means what he says. No, not just important: After the last couple of decades of cancerous “gotcha” politics of personal destruction, it is vital to our future. ![]() ![]() My view: Standing up to their bases and holding to the view that a civil society must allow for disagreement and debate without demonization is important. Both of them are now subject to attacks for the invitation, the offer and acceptance, from their respective purist bases on the left and right. 20 - and the same to Pastor Warren for accepting the invitation. The critics of Pastor Warren who misrepresent what Pastor Warren actually said do their cause no good.īut to the issue at hand: My hat is off to President-elect Barack Obama for inviting Pastor Warren to give the invocation at the Inaugural ceremony on Jan. As the words quoted above show, Pastor Warren was referring to marriage - not to the criminal and widely recognized heinous sexual wrongdoing of incest and pedophilia. That misleading charge spread rapidly across the Internet. But the fact is, it has been misrepresented by gay-rights critics that the pastor compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia. That sentence was insensitive, hurtful and unfortunate. Recently, he seemed to go further - in the same sentence, he mentioned his opposition to gay marriage as well as “having a brother and sister be together and call that marriage … an older guy marrying a child.” Even more uncomfortably for me, Pastor Warren would impose his views on others - for example, by supporting Proposition 8 in California, passed by a small majority of Californians last November, which would ban gay marriage in the Golden State. Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., has views on gays and gay marriage that are the extreme opposite from mine. If there is a loving relationship and the couple wishes for a marriage certificate as testimony to their commitment to each other, regardless of whether they are heterosexual or same-sex, I am strongly in favor of that. There are enough divorces and loveless marriages in this country. ![]() I strongly disagree with anyone who would deprive an American citizen of full and equal rights, regardless of sexual preference, and I would vote in favor, if I could, of all 50 states allowing same-sex marriages. Full disclosure of my position on gay rights and gay marriage: I support both, strongly. ![]()
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