The Presidency, Homosexuality, and The Church(es)

There are a number of items in the news lately that have me thinking about these evidently interrelated subjects.

• Rick Warren of Saddleback Church is delivering the invocation at Obama’s swearing-in ceremony next Tuesday.
• Openly gay Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson will deliver the invocation for this Sunday’s kickoff inaugural event on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
• Ted Haggard, former head and founder of New Life Church and formerly an unofficial advisor to President W, is leading a quiet life these days, but not so quiet that it doesn’t warrant a piece in Newsweek. (That may say more about Newsweek than it does about Haggard)

Let’s start with Rick Warren.

I like Rick Warren when he’s speaking out of the public side of his face. He has seemed, at times, to be moving past the big hot-button issues of abortion and homosexuality – almost setting them aside as issues that are being adequately addressed by conservative Christian churches already – in order to concentrate on other issues that are in need of more attention such as poverty, illness, and illiteracy. Those three issues are specifically addressed in the ACE portion of his PEACE plan, in fact. I agree with him that doing these things is part of the “Great Commandment” (as it is sometimes known) to “do unto others...” For that matter, there are more specific verses in the Bible that command its followers to feed, clothe and shelter the poor and the sick then there are to heave stones at the occasional homosexual, so I applaud someone who prioritizes appropriately.

But out of the other side of his mouth Warren exhorted his parishioners to vote in favor of California’s Proposition 8. And he also made a – possibly unnecessary – statement the day after his presidential election Civic Forum that let it be known that he could not find it within himself to vote for Obama. Specifically, Warren compared the aborted to victims of the Holocaust, and likened Obama to a Holocaust denier.

Nice. Yeah.

So Warren is now giving the invocation at Obama’s inauguration. Many people on the left are completely up in arms about this. They seem much more upset about Warren’s support of Proposition 8 than they do about the Holocaust comparisons.

Warren is certainly an interesting choice on Obama’s part. It shows Obama’s willingness and ability to work with people with whom he has disagreements.

Obama doesn’t support gay marriage, though, so Prop 8 may be an area in which he and Warren agree.

It’s not an area where he agrees with another inaugural invocator: Openly gay bishop the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson. Robinson stated in an interview with The Advocate that he would be "pushing" Obama on the issue of gay marriage, in fact.

Incidentally, Robinson has not been placed on the bill as a response to complaints about Warren.
He was scheduled prior to the dust-up about the Saddleback pastor.

Maybe it just shows foresight on Obama's part. Foresight is a good thing for a president to have.

I have to admit that playing to both sides of this issue really clouds Obama’s position. Which is probably what he wants. Obama is a centrist. He was often portrayed as a leftist, but anyone who familiarizes themselves with Obama’s positions shouldn’t mistake him for one. (That doesn’t mean Obama won’t give people opportunity to mistake his position on the political spectrum, though.)

And then there’s Ted Haggard.

At best, Haggard is tangential to this post, I admit. Still, it seems like I should be able to fit a former pastor who continues to wrestle with his own sexuality into a post about religious leaders on both sides of the gay marriage issue.

In this story from Newsweek it is revealed that Haggard was completely rejected by his church at a time when he most needed their support and help. His church even required him, for a while, not just to leave the New Life Church but to leave the state of Colorado. The church has since relented and has allowed him to return to both, if he chooses.

He has chosen to return to Colorado, but not to New Life Church. Haggard’s new life, then, is that of a mortgage salesman. Evidently he’s doing okay.

His spiritual life is a purely private matter now. He and his family are not attending services at any church. He fears he is not able to do so without bringing inordinate attention to any congregation he might encounter.

You know, if there’s a church in Colorado that would like some publicity, all it would have to do is invite Ted to attend... Just saying.

Hmmm, maybe Obama could invite Haggard to the inauguration? It would confuse the issue even more, if that's possible.