(UPDATE: Have complaints to share? Email Parag Mehta is Obama’s LGBT liaison on the transition team - )

I can understand the selection of Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, a revered veteran of the civil rights movement co-founder with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to deliver the benediction at Obama’s inauguration, but how on earth could he select fundie Rick Warren to do the invocation? Kyle at Right Wing Watch asked the same question and said:

As we’ve pointed out several times before, in 2004 Warren declared that marriage, reproductive choice, and stem cell research were “non-negotiable” issues for Christian voters and has admitted that the main difference between himself and James Dobson is a matter of tone.  He criticized Obama’s answers at the Faith Forum he hosted before the election and vowed to continue to pressure him to change his views on the issue of reproductive choice.  He came out strongly in support of Prop 8, saying “there is no need to change the universal, historical defintion of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population ... This is not a political issue—it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about.” He’s declared that those who do not believe in God should not be allowed to hold public office.

Obama inaugural team, this is a big f*ck up a la Donnie McClurkin. No, it’s worse. These folks can’t claim they didn’t know where Warren stood on the matter of civil rights for LGBTs—why look, here’s Warren speaking out in favor of Prop 8 (h/t Teddy Partridge):

UPDATE: Here’s a nice tidbit about Warren. He thought of his support for Prop 8 as a “free speech” matter. Via Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin:

Rick Warren:Oh I do. I just… For five thousand years, marriage has been defined by every single culture and every single religion — this is not a Christian issue. Buddhists, Muslims, the Jews, historically marriage is a man and a woman. And so I’m opposed to that. And the reason I supported Prop 8 really, was a free speech issue. Because if it had…. First, the court overid the will of the people. But second, is, there were all kinds of threats that if you… that did not pass, then any pastor could be considered doing hate speech if he shared his views that he didn’t think homosexuality was the most natural way for relationships. And that would be hate speech. To me, we should have freedom of speech. And you should be able to have freedom of speech to make your position, and I should be able to have freedom of speech to make my position. And can we do this in a civil way?

This selection is clearly not about “change”—it’s about making a high profile decision to give the stage over to a known homophobe; choosing Rick Warren is tantamount to asking any of the professional “Christian” set to stand up there. There is no excuse for this, given there are so many leaders of the faith community out there that are in alignment with equality for all.

UPDATE 2: More below the fold, including reactions from LGBT and progressive organizations (I’m adding them as they come in).

Read All...