Rick Warren Thinks He Isn't Anti-Gay; He Isn't Not Wrong

Pastor Rick Warren, the subject of a huge controversy involving his selection by Barack Obama to give the inaugural invocation, posted a video on his website to whine about the media and protest his innocence. He also went on a gay field trip/photo op to buttress his moderate cred.

Watching Rick's video, I realized that I hadn't seen most of the interview that is fueling this controversy. The clip of Warren equating gay marriage with pedophilia has been played ad nauseum, but I wondered if it was snipped out of context to make it look worse. Rick's video seems to suggest this.

Well, it turns out that Rick Warren, while kindly-looking and well-spoken, is a liar and a frakking idiot. Watch the full Wall Street Journal interview (which, incidentally, only has 100 views on YouTube as of this writing, proof that not many have seen the context) and I'll explain after the jump.

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Now, you don't have to hate gays to be anti-gay. I'm sure a lot of plantation owners were very fond of their slaves, but that didn't make them pro-black, or even not anti-black. I'm not comparing Rick Warren to a slaveowner, I'm just illustrating a point.

You know, kinda like how Rick wasn't comparing gay marriage to pedophilia. Here's where the lying comes in. In his video, Warren says he gave lots of examples of relationships he finds unacceptable, including people "living together" and "common law partnerships."

This is a lie. In the WSJ.com interview, he only cites examples of criminal behaviors alongside gay marriage. Whether he was making a direct comparison, or an abstract one, matters very little. If I said that Rick Warren shares the beliefs of Adolph Hitler, Charles Manson, and Satan, it wouldn't make much of a difference which beliefs I was talking about. I'm clearly equating Warren with these 3.

He's also a total moron, in that he says he favors the same definition of marriage that has been universally accepted "since the beginning of man." That means multiple wives, arranged marriages, temporary marriages, and marriage to adolescents.

I actually don't think he's that dumb, and chalk this up as another lie.

There is an instinct to lay off of Warren a little because his heart seems to be in the right place, and there are, unquestionably, much worse offenders among the ranks of evangelicals. I would respond that we're not referring Warren for drawing and quartering, but simply asking that he not deliver an invocation at an event that belongs to all of us.

Warren is dangerous precisely because he doesn't hate gay people. He thinks denying them rights and demanding their repentance are loving acts. In real life, you'd sign a restraining order against a lover like that.

Giving Rick huge benefit of the doubt, maybe his trip to a gay book store was more than just a fence-mending photo op. Even if he is on a soul-searching journey here, I doubt he will be able to overcome centuries of dogma. Even if his heart is in the right place, I'm afraid his head will remain up his ass.

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