I have been reluctant to join in with groups seeking my signature on petitions to persuade Obama to deal with this or that issue “first”. I trust him to deal with priorities and get things done and a bunch of whiners whirling around his head just muddies the waters, no matter how noble their issues are.

For the first time, however, I am dismayed with one of his choices. It is his selection of the Evangelical Reverend Rick Warren to do the invocation at his inaugural. This is a “holy” man who has been vocal in his condemnation of gay rights, is virulently anti-choice, believes in male dominance in the home even when the man is an abuser and an idiot.

Katha Pollitt, writing for the Los Angeles Times, says, in part, the following:

In a news conference Thursday, Obama defended the choice of Warren: "It is important for the country to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues."

That's all very well, but excuse me if I don't feel all warm and fuzzy. Obama won thanks to the strenuous efforts of people who've spent the last eight years appalled by the Bush administration's wars and violations of human rights, its attacks on gays and women, its denigration of science, its general pandering to bigotry and ignorance in the name of God.

I'm all for building bridges, but honoring Warren, who insults Obama's base as perverts and murderers, is definitely a bridge too far.”

Katha Pollitt, a poet, essayist and critic, writes the "Subject to Debate" column in the Nation.
End excerpt.

I had expected better judgment from President-elect Obama. Twice, in my opinion, he has erred. Both errors concern religious figures. What is going on? Evangelical proselytizers, I had fervently hoped, weren't going to be enabled and encouraged in an Obama administration. We have just come through an era of the political dark ages. It would appear that Obama has an Achilles heel: men of the cloth. Please not again a religious divider, a enabler of “Godly” figures whose views champion repression.

This invitation might as well have been made by George W. Bush. It is not only more of the same, it is dismaying beyond belief.

I am personally of the opinion, in any case, that no “man of God” need ever be part of any secular event. We are not a church state. Giving credence to God’s role is in direct opposition to separation of church and state. Let’s have done with religious figures being considered relevant to any federal event.

Furthermore, “under God” was never in the original Pledge of Allegiance. It was added, under pressure from religious lobbies, later on. When I was a child, it was not part of the Pledge.

The settlers fled Europe to escape religious persecution. And now we have invented it all over again.

I have already weighed in with E mail to the Obama staff and with Hillary's staff, hoping she might have some influence as well.

xx, Teal