Popular evangelical Pastor Rick Warren says it is not being anti-gay to oppose gay marriage.
Warren opposes redefining marriage as any conservative Christian would.
One News Now reported:
Pastor Rick Warren, chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to pray at his inauguration, said in a video message to his church that he doesn’t equate gay relationships with incest or pedophilia, but opposes redefining marriage just as any conservative Christian would.
Warren said that disagreeing with gay-rights activists on same-sex marriage does not qualify as hate speech and doesn’t mean he is anti-gay. He said Obama chose him to give the invocation at the swearing-in to show that people with different views don’t have to demonize each other.
“We’re both willing to be criticized in order to try to bring America into a new day of civil discourse and to create a new model that says you don’t have to agree only with your side on everything,” Warren said in the video posted Monday night by Saddleback Community Church.
Gay-rights advocates were enraged that Obama had given the evangelical clergyman a prominent role at the Jan. 20 inauguration. Obama said he wanted the event to reflect diverse views and insisted he remains a “fierce advocate” of equal rights for gays.
In related news… Pastor Wiley Drake says God will punish Rick Warren for supporting “this evil illegal alien” Barack Obama.