The Power Of Prayer

Largely greeted with good will during the transition, President-elect Obama is getting a taste of hostility over his choice of the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver his inaugural invocation. A number of leading lesbian and gay voices, including Rep. Barney Frank, have criticized the selection of the megapastor, who has spoken out against same-sex marriage. Warren, in a statement Thursday, thanked Obama "for his courage to willingly take enormous heat from his base by inviting someone like me, with whom he doesn't agree on every issue, to offer the invocation. Hopefully individuals passionately expressing opinions from the left and the right will recognize that both of us have shown a commitment to model civility in America." In that vein, NEWSWEEK asked two members of the gay community to debate the Warren controversy. Chris Crain is a blogger and journalist who has written about Warren on his blog. Leah McElrath Renna is a psychotherapist and managing partner of Renna Communications who has covered the topic on The Huffington Post. Excerpts:

Chris Crain: Leah, you and others are criticizing the selection of Rick Warren as a betrayal of Barack Obama's promise to unify the country, but the way you define "unity" is really very exclusionary. The inaugural committee has promised "an inclusive and accessible inauguration that ... unites the nation around our shared values and ideals." You argue Warren should be disqualified under that standard because his gay-marriage opposition is a "value and ideal" you don't share. But Obama's point was to unify us around areas of agreement, and here you are focused on disagreement, so where's the betrayal? For "unifying the nation" to mean anything, there must be "inclusion" for conservatives, including the many millions like Warren who oppose gay marriage. Excluding those with whom we disagree is the antithesis of unifying.

Even if you suspect the whole "unity" thing is really just about politics, the selection of Warren still makes good sense, including for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans. It is a stroke of political brilliance to recruit a conservative megapastor in support of a president-elect who is arguably the most pro-gay, pro-choice and progressive in our history. That's the kind of political dividend you get from focusing on common ground—like Warren's support for the fight against global warming and AIDS.

Leah McElrath Renna: Chris, the important point that is being missed by you and others is the context of Warren's participation in the inauguration. The person selected to deliver the invocation has the honor of serving as the spiritual representative for the entire nation. The person is charged with the responsibility of calling upon God for God's assistance on allof our behalf, and the reality is that Warren does not recognize lesbian and gay people as being spiritually whole or as having been created by God exactly how we are.

If Rick Warren were a pastor of the Christian fundamentalist type who espoused a belief that all Muslims or Jewish people were unbelievers, infidels or "failures as human beings" (as the late Jerry Falwell is reported to have described all people who did not identify as "born-again Christians"), then we would not even be having this discussion.

Rick Warren's beliefs about LGBT people are substantially equivalent to those views. Based on his own statements, Warren does not believe that lesbian and gay people exist. He views us as people who "think they are smarter than God" and who choose "to disobey God's sexual instructions." In other words, he sees us as behaviorally disordered sinners. He has even gone beyond that to equate our marital relationships with the abusive perversions of incest and pedophilia.

What impact do you think this choice will have on the millions of LGBT people of faith in this country to see this man being put forth as a spiritual representative for the nation as a whole? What impact do you imagine this will have on LGBT people of faith who have suffered harm by being forced into so-called "ex-gay ministries"—programs for which Warren has voiced his support?

The presidential inauguration is—by definition—a symbolic event. That's its entire purpose. What it is not is a policy roundtable. I am a pragmatist by nature and—unlike some of Obama's supporters—do not expect him not to be a politician. But the choice of Rick Warren amounts to an act of spiritual violence against lesbian and gay Americans, and it has created a world of hurt that could have been so easily avoided. With an entire world of truly inclusive spiritual leaders eager to participate in this inauguration, there is simply no valid reason that President-elect Obama couldn't have chosen someone to perform the invocation who actually recognizes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as whole and perfect children of God exactly how they are.