Rick Warren, Rick Warren. President-elect Obama’s selection of the evangelical preacher to give the invocation at Inauguration continues to stir up debate, as a quick glance at any LGBT news site will tell you. My own feeling at the moment is that Warren is a bigot and should not have been chosen, but at this point, Obama is not going to change his mind. The best solution under the circumstances, then, would be to try and dilute Warren’s effect by asking a group of people from diverse traditions to give the invocation along with Warren, as I explained at more length at Bilerico.

For further reading, however, consider these contrasting stories about Warren and LGBT families:

  • Executive director of Soulforce and gay dad Jeff Lutes attempted to bring several LGBT couples and their children to Warren’s Saddleback Church, worship, and share a meal and conversation with the pastor and his wife. According to Lutes, the plans quickly fell apart, resulting in only “an awkward hug” for Lutes and his family, with no meal or conversation.
  • Singer and lesbian mom Melissa Etheridge’s spoke with Warren the other day:

    He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn’t want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife’s struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine.

    When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future.

I don’t believe one of the above stories is more “true” than the other. I think both Lutes and Etheridge had different experiences with Warren. Yes, Warren has said many homophobic things, and banned “homosexuals” from his church. As BlogActive’s Mike Rogers noted on Hardball last night, though, he has now removed this ban from the language on his Web site. Whether this signals an actual change in Warren’s thinking or just a PR move remains to be seen. I’m inclined to think the latter, but even so, the fact that he was willing to change it indicates he realizes some value in doing so. Fred Phelps, say, would never have considered it.

Etheridge goes further, and says:

But there are also good people out there, Christian and otherwise that are beginning to listen. They don’t hate us, they fear change. Maybe in our anger, as we consider marches and boycotts, perhaps we can consider stretching out our hands. Maybe instead of marching on [Warren's] church, we can show up en mass and volunteer for one of the many organizations affiliated with his church that work for HIV/AIDS causes all around the world.

Maybe if they get to know us, they wont fear us.

I’m not sure I can summon up quite the same faith in the essential goodness of human nature, but I think she has a point. As Rogers said, “Remember, it’s not about swaying our hard-lined opponents, it’s about talking to those in the middle. That is done with composure and, more importantly, respect.”

The question is whether Warren is one of those in the swayable middle or a hardliner. Was Obama reaching out to him because he sensed, like Etheridge, that Warren, despite his social conservatism, was the most likely among the big-name Evangelicals to modify his ways and become a bridge between the Evangelical community and an administration with progressive social actions on its agenda? Or was he unaware of the uproar Warren’s selection would cause? Again, I think the answer is someplace in between. Your thoughts?