Obama bigot pick is not change we can believe in

As far as President-elect Barack Obama choosing an out-and-proud anti-gay evangelical preacher to deliver the invocation at his inaugural next month, I’m not surprised. I’m not happy, but I’m not surprised.

For this prominent role, Obama picked Pastor Rick Warren, an evangelical minister at a California mega-church who is anti-choice on the issue of abortion, is a foe of same-sex marriage, and has compared homosexuality to incest and pedophilia.

This is not “change we can believe in,” as Obama’s campaign rhetoric went. This is change we can do without.

Since the Warren pick went public, pro-gay, liberal, secular, and progressive groups have been screaming about how this goes against what Obama believes in and sets a bad tone for Obama’s presidency.

Those who are angry obviously weren’t paying attention to Obama during the campaign.

Obama repeatedly made it clear that he was interested in a post-partisan, post-ideological presidency – a big tent that brought together people with startling different views.

Obama also made it clear that he is very comfortable intermingling religion and politics. After all, it was Obama who talked about continuing George W. Bush’s faith-based initiatives.

And this is not the first time Obama sacrificed his gay and lesbian supporters for the sake of anti-gay religious voters. During the Democratic primary, it was Obama who tapped Donnie McClurkin, a so-called “ex-gay” and outspoken opponent of gay and lesbian civil rights, to headline a gospel campaign tour for Obama.

In fact, Obama’s ease in mixing politics and religion is one of the reasons I backed Sen. Hillary Clinton over Obama during the primary. Clinton, to her credit, and even Republican John McCain are more apt to keep politics and religion separate.

Pastor Warren, however, openly and strongly disagrees with the nation’s separation of church and state.

So this move on Obama’s part is a slap in the face to all those Democrat Party interest groups that worked so hard to elect him.

But activists and groups like the Human Rights Campaign and People for the American Way were so blinded by their own giddiness over Obama’s flowery rhetoric that they couldn’t forecast Obama’s religious-based, right-wing moves.

After all, many people are angry because Warren is against same-sex marriage rights and campaigned in favor of California’s Proposition 8, which turned back the clock on the issue in the Golden State. But Obama, too, is against same-sex marriage, and he stayed mum on Prop 8.

People just assumed Obama supports full rights for gay and lesbian Americans because they bought into Obama’s so-called “change.”

Even in defending his choice of Warren, Obama played both sides of the issue by saying, “I think that it is no secret that I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans.”

But that’s simply not true. He may be an advocate for some issues important to the community, but if you do not support full equality, and you stay silent while the most populous state in the union takes away the rights of gay and lesbian Americans, nothing about you is “fierce.”