Our First Fight

Obama picks Rick Warren to give invocation at the Inauguration. Rick Warren supported an initiative in California that took away marital rights from gays granted months earlier by the state's Supreme Court. He compared gay marriage to marriage between siblings and between an older man and a girl.



All hell has broken loose.



And for good reason. Obama has asked for understanding from the gay community that people of different views will be represented at the inauguration. But many gay people regard the California proposition as a referendum to live their lives--basic stuff in the humanity department. So how could gay citizens be asked to compromise on something so basic as the right to express themselves with the love of their life in a way recognized by the law and society like everyone else?



It might be that gay citizens might need to settle for recognition under the law for now. Society, if California is any indication, is not going there now. The California Supreme Court could not justify denying marriage rights to gay Californians under that state's constitution. Yet in the incredibly interesting world of California law and politics, in a manner that defies the logic of political philosophy, a vote was held to take rights away from a segment of society. In my view, it is not possible to justify similar discrimination under the national constitution. In a few words, equal protection requires legal recognition of gay marriage.



The social part is a little trickier. Starting with the religious groups, my ever developing knowledge of First Amendment Law tells me that the freedom of religion clause would preclude the government from requiring a church to perform a ceremony or to recognize the union of persons of the same sex. Right or wrong, one's religious beliefs are one's religious beliefs. A pastor does not need to recognize the right of a same sex couple to marry.



But the county clerk must!



Rick Warren and other opponents of the initiative are overreaching when they try to wipe the concept off the public books for any circumstance. This is why the rejection of the marriage right is so disappointing. Warren need never perform a ceremony between two men or two women. He is protected by the First Amendment. The overreaching comes from a paranoia held by many among, as I am learning, conservative and moderate clergy and religious folks, that a gay couple calling themselves married is going to undermine the relationships and bedhopping of heterosexuals seeking love and sex in every location from the Church to singles bars.



Others may believe that the fact of open homosexuality is the problem already before us. This is an undebateble proposition. People who feel that way are not going to be convinced to change by anything that I say. But, while one cannot mandate an embrace of the lifestyle, tolerance is required in a civil society.



In a word, anti-gay movement activists, which in the case of the California initiative, includes Rick Warren, add nothing of value to the notion of civil discourse in this country. Indeed, they advocated against gay marriage for no rational reason that I can discern.



That having been said, to depict Warren as just another run of the mill right wing "Christian" is not well founded. Gavin Newsome, the activist mayor of San Francisco who helped get all of this started by pushing city legislation for marriage in his city, spoke on the Rachel Maddow program on MSNBC on December 18. While denouncing the choice by the President Elect to invite Warren, on several occasions Newsome made a point of distinguishing Warren from the evangelical right likes of the late Jerry Falwell, among others. "He really is a nice man." Newsome said while noting a number of breaks from right wing evangelical rhetoric and policy in the areas of poverty and the need for it to be addressed, torture and how the US should not implement torture under any circumstances, climate change and environmentalism--all positions that many right wing Christians apparently feel divinely obligated to ignore, or stand against positive change.

Rick Warren is no Jerry Falwell, and this ought to be recognized. Members of the gay community critical of the invitation maintain their credibility not by depicting Warren as a youthful Falwell. He is not. They maintain their credibility by critiquing the invitation on its merits, a strong case, while maintaining, in public statements, the distinction between Warren and the evangelical right. Mayor Newsome understands this.