Disappointed

Obama has chosen Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguartion. This is the same megachurch pastor who says he hopes he can convince Obama to abolish legal and safe abortion. The same Rick Warren who made ads in favor of California's Proposition 8 which re-outlawed gay marriage. The same Rick Warren who told lies to support Prop 8 (legal gay marriage would lead to pastors who "he didn’t think homosexuality was the most natural way for relationships" to be prosecuted for hate speech). The same Rick Warren who uses the "some of my best friends" argument to claim he isn't homophobic.

This is not a first for Obama. My initial reservations about Obama's candidacy was based on his forays into being a moral scold for Democrats and claiming we needed to cosy up to extremist evangelical conservatives. This kind of knee-jerk Lierbermanism is bad for the Democratic Party, bad for America, and deeply disappointing to me. But then, he isn't trying to make me happy. Too many of his people have bought into another key tenet of Lierbermanism: that it's always a big win and a sign of bipartisanship to kick liberals in the teeth. I still have hope that he'll be a great president on other issues, but I expect to remain disappointed whenever religion comes into it (such as church/state separation and culture wars).

Update: On a happier note, he's invited Aretha Franklin to sing at the inaugural.