Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

I have read your posts on Obama's selection of Rick Warren and have a different perspective.  I share your hostility to the phenomenon you aptly call "Christianism" and your identification of Rick Warren with it.

At the same time, for better or worse, Rick Warren is the most prominent leader in contemporary evangelical Christianity.  I do not see Obama's selection of him to give his invocation as an endorsement of Warren's arguable bigotry and -- more disturbing to me -- his tolerance for the lawlessness of the Bush administration.  Obama is sending the signal that Warren's views on these matters, however much he disagrees with them, do not make him an enemy.

And Warren's agreement to do the invocation sends the signal to Christianists that Obama's position on abortion does not make him their enemy. By including Warren in his inauguration, Obama is doing exactly what you wanted and expected him to do, striking a blow at the binary, culture-war mentality that is a toxic legacy of the sixties. I consider it a statesman-like move.

I take that point. And I understand where it's coming from, as I wrote. The proof of it will lie in Obama's actual acts on gay equality. If he manages to embrace Christianists while expanding, so far as he can, gay equality, good for him. My fear is that we will, once again, be wedged into second-class status.