The XX Factor: What women really think.

Prayer and Consequences

And, in response to your specific points, I do find those circumstances to be different in important ways. I found Wright's views to be appalling, but I found the Republican flogging of his views to be race-baiting. I suspected—no evidence, just a hunch—that he went to that church for political reasons, small-p political, socializing with the people who could help in Chicago politics and all that. So when Obama disavowed those views and quit the church, I shrugged off his attendance. I expect certain kinds of small compromises and hypocrisy from politicians, I suppose, and that one didn't seem especially large.  

But like Dahlia, I find it to be a quite different thing to give a minister a national podium—essentially, to ask him to give the nation's prayer, to ask that minister to invoke his (can anyone remember a female in that spot?) divinity's blessing on our highest national office. How would you feel if it were Wright giving that prayer? What kind of racialized uproar would we be seeing?

And yet take a white extremist—someone who espouses what most of us see as unacceptable misogyny, someone who believes in evangelizing all people to his own religion, someone who gives voice to relatively extreme antigay sentiments (as Sara pointed out)—and give him a podium, and the mainstream nods at how inclusive Obama is.

I see a double standard here, but not the same one that you see.

Wright and Wrong and Warren

Like Dahlia amd E.J., I'm not thrilled with Obama's selection of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration, given Warren's opposition to gay marriage and many of his other views. At a time of high divorce rates and increased infidelity—and I'm talking about hetereosexuals, who are the real threat to the institution of marriage—I find it almost comically perverse that conservatives are against a group of people who so earnestly want to form committed, long-term, stable relationships sanctioned by God.

Indeed, when I recently moved temporarily to Dallas, my way of finding an Episcopal church for me and my daughter was to Google "gay," "bishop," "New Hampshire," and "Dallas." And sure enough, I quickly found the one congregation where every priest on the staff had supported Gene Robinson, and I feel right at home. But it did gnaw at me at the time that I just wanted to be preached to by the converted. After all, were I more committed to gay and lesbian rights, wouldn't I have joined precisely those Episcopal congregations where the issue is still an open wound—and believe you me, there are plenty to choose from in North Texas—and tried to persuade my less-enlightened congregants to see the light? I took the easy way out.

In this one sense, I do have grudging respect for Obama’s choice of Warren. Yes, it’s clearly a political calculation—but political in a good sense. I do believe Obama is genuinely trying to create dialogue with those who disagree with him in hopes of bringing a few more wayward souls along. If he can get even a few evangelicals to drop their active opposition to gay rights—to become more agnostic, so to speak, on this one issue—then that might, in fact, further the cause more than I'm doing on Sundays by kneeling, smug and self-satisfied, next to my fellow liberal parishioners.

Obama did, after all, actively campaign on bringing people together, and I remember at least thinking I supported that idea during the election. While I am sinfully spiteful enough after the damage of the Bush years to wish this unity would now take place under dark of night (or maybe involve issues I care less about), so long as Obama continues to push hard for equal rights for all Americans as a matter of policy, I have less of a problem with his otherwise entirely symbolic olive branch to Warren. However, if the result of such good-faith efforts is to provide an opportunity for right-leaners like Rachael to tar Obama again with Jeremiah Wright, then never mind: Bring back those good ole partisan politics.

The Personal and the Political

If Obama had attended a quiet, out-of-the-way church that focused on helping its congregants achieve spiritual growth, one where the kindly old minister made house calls to the elderly and infirm, sure, it would be unkind to compare that person to Rick Warren. But if Obama had attended that kind of church, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Instead, he attended a church whose preacher sought out the spotlight and sold DVDs of sermons in which he preached anti-American views. And Obama had a 20-year relationship with that church. Isn't that lengthy commitment, however personal, more telling than a brief and symbolic political act?

Let's frame this another way: If the Republicans had nominated a candidate who attended Rick Warren's church for 20 years, would it have been fair to question that person's choice of spiritual adviser? (Heck, I'd have questioned it.)

Extremism Is Always Unattractive, Wright?

E.J.,

Let me start by saying that there is probably very little outside of abortion that the Rev. Rick Warren and I agree on. My righty-ness has more to do with political and economic conservatism than social issues. I am a staunch supporter of gay rights and gay marriage, and I think the best marriages are equal partnerships, not employer-employee relationships. I don't know what the afterlife will bring, but I doubt it's a Christians-only country club.

So I respect and share your concerns about the message President-elect Obama is sending by inviting Warren to do the inaugural invocation. But isn't there an interesting parallel here? Obama attended Trinity United and listened to its pastor, the infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for 20 years. Jeremiah Wright, who is on tape saying, "God Damn America," who has claimed that the government created AIDS for the purpose of "genocide against people of color," and who just a few weeks ago marked the occasion of Pearl Harbor Day by calling it the anniversary of the United States dropping the bomb on Hiroshima.

Yet complaining about Obama's association with Wright was verboten during the election. Conservatives who raised the issue were viewed as intolerant, racist, or muckraking. It was a silly issue blown out of proportion and gave no indication of what kind of president Obama would be, we were told.

Personally, I'm no fan of extremism of any stripe. So I hope that everyone who is so up in arms about Warren right now can at least take a second and reconsider whether we righties were so wrong to complain about Wright.