Free rider is a troll.

I was joking when I said I was pooping my diaper. I couldn't really care less who gives the fucking invocation at Obama's inauguration. Seriously. I'll be more upset if he picks an ugly tie. I mean, what are we--a bunch of fucking CHILDREN? Shit happens that we don't agree with. That's life. Grow up and get over it. He picked Hillary Fucking Clinton as Secretary of State, and I got over it. Does this non-issue even rise to the level of a minor annoyance? Not for me. Not even close.

Yea, who cares. He's not taking away any of our rights, so why should we give a flying F. Just so long as we're not affected, we could care less.

Where did those rights Thomas Jefferson so eloquently described originate again?

I'm way in your camp on this CT, and it's nice to see you arguing circles around these doughfaced dupes.

Look, I get the historical comparison and there is much validity to it. But the flip side of it is that there were plenty of fundementally decent people in the bad old dying days of Jim Crow who believed that intermarriage between blacks and whites was contrary to Biblical teaching who eventually were able to overcome and accept it.

Here and now, this is the reality: a politically significant number of people in this country have a religion-based belief that homosexuality, and gay marriage in particular, is morally wrong and socially destructive. By politically significant, I mean that there are enough of them who hold this view to block, or at last greatly impede, progress. Is that, at least, not clear?
Prop 8 passed in one of the bluest states in the union. Blame who you want, claim that it wasn't fair, blame black voters, or hispanic voters, or the Pope or Rick Warren or the Mormons or whoever you want, if that makes you feel better. Regardless, the reality is, here and now, there are enough people, with enough money, to enact their religious based objections to gay marriage by referendum in California of all places, and if they can do it there, they can do it anywhere.

The long term good news is that this is a generational problem--they are not succeeding in transmitting this belief to their kids.

The shorter-term good news is that, like a lot of people who harbored deeply racist beliefs in the old days, some segment of the people who have this a religious basis for anti-gay prejudice are, nonetheless, fundementally decent and are capable of being brought over to a more enlightened way of thinking. Some can be pushed into the light before change happens, and some can be drug into it after. And some can't.

So, you've got two choices. The first is the generational option: wait until these people die out and their kids are the grownups. That's going to take longer than anyone wants to wait.

The other is to separate the basically decent from the totally irredeemable black-hearted haters. Unless you do that, you're stuck with waiting for their kids to inherit the Earth. That's it. Those are really the only two options.

This guy is a leader to a lot of the people who can be be brought over to acceptance, or at least irritable acquisience. If you alienate isolate, demonize, and ostracize them, all you will do is mobilize them.

Obama is going to be the most pro-GLBT president in the history of this country and his policies will follow. His whole career, and all of his public pronouncements indicate that much. And just possibly, having thrown a few symbolic bones--with no practical impact--to Rick Warren and his followers will turn out to make some difference in how far he can go and what he can make stick.

No, that's not emotionally satisfying. No, in the grand cosmic scheme of things, its not just that people who are in the right should have to treat with those who are wrong, and, in particular, it is unjust that the the oppressed should have to conciliate or cater to feelings of their oppressors. That sucks.

But one thing I've found as an attorney is that real victories are infinitely better than moral victories. I've found that getting to real victory sometimes means doing things I don't like, up do and including temporarily accepting injuries to my dignity, suffering injustices in silence, and dealing with people you don't really like. Most distateful of all, I've found that foregoing actions that would be immediately emotionally gratifying but, ultimately, counterproductive is essential. And in the end, I've found that invariably, all of those slights and injuries together are less distastful than outright defeat, and that outright ultimate victory is sweeter than any number of emotionally gratifying hits that don't move me toward the goalposts.

Here is how shallow all of this actually is. I am just finishing Kearn's enlightening book in the context of Obama's Transition Team and it is more than ironic it is close to the level of absolute divide that has impaled this nation.

Obama is clearly playing the middle like Lincoln played the middle between his Radical Republicans and his pragmatists, the Democrats and the Peace at all cost Democrats, the Know Nothings, where his goal was not the idealogue but the pragmatic basis of saving the Union. The Emacipation Proclamation was as much a practical solution of bringing in new blood into the Union Army as it was depleting the South's supply chain and labor force as it was to move the nation from slavetocracy to keeping Europe at bay from meddling in the Civil War.

Few were happy with his appointments or timing and he even had his Sec of Treasury opening conspiring to run for President in '64 while Lincoln kept him as long has he did a good job funding the war. He cut one of allies son's who was in the powerful Post Master General spot to effectively politically remove Fremont from a 3rd Party run.

This guy Warren is merely a symbol. Sexual preference rights will move forward even if Warren makes a speech and prayer for to move this nation forward it will demand that the middle and moderates must come to terms and Warren who wants to be part of the solution on many things. It is a master stroke. Obama is not from the cast of clothes that has cemented America since Nixon.

And your reactionary emotions are to be respected but are just that---reactionary and shallow.

Read Kearns---all of you and you will see a blueprint of Obama's structure. Next up is Alter's book to see his a blueprint on his legislative strategy.

BTW...Cheney's warning that the GOP will fall into a generation of minority party status is not all there. Once Obama takes away one of the G's in the 3-G strategy of Guns, God and Gay[hate] they will be akin to the Know-Nothings...

Wait to Obama has to hold torture and crimes against humanity trials over Bush's pardons...the devil will really be in the details.

Second. This is very disappointing. It's one more "insignificant" insult to the left side of the Democratic party and Obama figures he can get away with it because we have no place else to go. But it is one more pin prick letting air out of the balloon of excitement and enthusiasm Obama's candidacy and victory created. And that enthusiasm is not going to be maintained and shaped into a movement for positive change by a bunch of living room socials on health care -- especially when actual liberals come to see their status in the Democratic party. Looks good now -- post-partisan and all -- but Obama is drawing down his reserve of good will among the Democratic base one "insignificant" decision at a time.

Then perhaps we should get a minister from the Aryian Nations so that the entire religious and political spectrum is represented?

Okay--you're making me do something I loathe to do--defend Warren. I don't think Warren wants to start firing up the ovens for gays, so can we stop with the hyperbole.

With that said, if you're so outraged, why don't you and a bunch of your friends go over to change.gov and let Obama's people know how you feel. I did. Why wait until 2012 to "punish" him. If enough people raise a stink about this, perhaps Obama will do something about gay issues--for example appointing some openly gay cabinet member, repealing DADT, or maybe, just maybe, push for a civil union bill. I don't think he'll drop Warren from he inauguration ceremony because he doesn't want to seem weak.

But Obama is sympathetic to GLBT issues. He's got a GLBT liaison--I may be wrong, but Bush didn't have that. His Sec. of Education pick opened a high school in Chicago for gay kids. And finally Joseph Lowery, a Civil Rights icon and pro-gay supporter, is doing the closing prayer during the inauguration.

I know none of this will change your mind, but I thought I would show other people here that Obama isn't a gay-baby-eating SS member.