enough about the Warren selection. It's just a bloody prayer, folks.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

I suppose a little bit of disclosure is in order. Two points to disclose:

Without channeling a certain very confused, laughable, and very sad species of GOP senator, I am not gay. I have not been gay, and I have no urge to be gay, much less act hypocritically like Rev. Ted. or Senator Water Closet.
Am I anti-homosexual? Hell, no. I sent money to oppose Prop 8, I supported gay and lesbian candidates across the nation in 2008, and for my personal friendships and relationships, it matters not one bit what the sexual preferences and inclinations of others are in business, personal or family dealings. In my relatively small extended family (death, Stalin, Hitler, and disease has taken a toll on the numbers), I know of three openly gay folks, and four others that have tried to live life a more closeted style, each with unfortunate and unnecessary pain and confusion. A best friend of mine died of AIDS. Another close friend has serious health issues and complications. In terms of sex and sexual preference, I draw the line in on and only one area - sex predators feasting on the defenseless, whether they are adult women being raped, children being "taught" by their priests, or even adults being beaten and controlled by their spouses or partners.


I am not religious. Let me amend that. To those few who recognize me or my writing, you already realize that I am not just agnostic or atheist (I love the wars between those two groups, given the slight differences between the dictionary definition, common usage today, and other factors) but I am virulently agnostic AND atheistic. Therein lies a contradiction which I acknowledge. While my personal thoughts are that all organized religion is a scam, a travesty, a lie, and while I believe that the indoctrination of youth by parents, ministers, preachers, imams or priests is a form of brainwashing, I will also support the constitutional right of people to choose a faith, any faith, as their own. (Kids being sent to sunday school are never given the choice - they are forced to accept the bible, the torah, or koran is fact from an early age - but that's another issue for another time.

Rev. Warren is a non-issue. His obvious, admitted, and patent homo-phobia makes as little difference to the inauguration as do his crazy religious ideas that drive his homophobia. The fact that they are inseparably related is rather amusing, form a theoretical perspective, but the reality is that his views are more common than we would like on both issues, sexual orientation and religion.

We have suffered the pains and arrows of 8 consecutive years of feith-based intelligence, faith-based initiatives, attacks on secular social programs, science, stem cells, and a whole dictionary full of topics that may or may not start with the letter S. The false ideology of unfettered, unregulated, absolutely free marketism combined with an ultra-conservative brand of christianity has taken a fairly healthy country and turned it into Doug Adams' Disaster Area. It has torn the fabric of our culture and our society apart, and is at risk of further serious, permanent damage.

The emergency is here and now. It is NOT the time for retribution, (except for the war crimes trials of Bush/Cheney and their cabal) and it would be foolish of us to make like a metronome, and make the same mistakes the GOP made, but only on the other side of the political spectrum. While going to the other extreme may provide some small measure of psychic pleasure, it would only split the country apart, and we simply cannot afford that here and now.

Yes, Warren is crazy. His religion is silly, illogical, warped, perverted and dangerous. Those conservatives who associated themselves with him also suffer from seriously irrational religious beliefs. But guess what, folks? They suffer no less than we do in today's economy. They, too, suffer loss of jobs, loss of income, loss of homes, and a loss of access to health care. What makes their case sadder is that they compound their problem greatly by wasting their time doing that silly prayer ritual. Not only will it not solve anything, it also gives them false hope, and wastes increasing amounts of their time, precious time that could be used to fix the problem.

Barack Obama came to the national stage on several simple, straightforward messages. A. Extreme partisan politics solves nothing and can cause great damage. B. We must reach across the aisle on issues where we can, to find common solutions to our worst problems. C. Inviting everyone in for a dialogue is good, not bad.

By inviting a homophobe like Warren into the NATION'S inauguration (it is not ours. We do not own it. We have no right to claim it as exclusively ours.) is actually a brilliant step. It tells all Americans that they are welcome. It puts the rabid right on notice that our words and deeds are precisely what we said they would be. It gives the irrational religious majority of America the hope that ideology is not the first, last, and worst part of our immediate future, but rather, despite our differences, our SERIOUS differences, we are reaching across a large divide in the hopes that we can set aside those differences and reach agreements where the fire is burning now.

There is a side element to this that many here have forgotten. Our ideas and ideals of free choice, benefits for all, legal standing for gay couples, etc., will not change. But by simply inviting Warren to pray next month, several things will happen. Gays and lesbians will no longer appear to be some secret unknown, something scary, something evil - a picture that Warren and others have tried to paint for a generation. More importantly, Warren himself will be transformed. He can't help it. When we act in a mature, reasonable, and respectful manner to him, he will learn something that he never knew before - humanity is the key, regardless of their sexual preferences. Despite his preaching, his bent education, and the warped message he carries, he will be the one who gets an education and he will be the one who becomes more open-minded and rational by doing this.

It may not happen in a month. But it will happen. Warren will come to terms with his homophobia and realize how cruel that message has been. He will change his message as a result. All we have to do is to encourage his education a bit.