So, count me in the group of people who thought that Obama had shot himself in the foot more than once during the primaries and general election, only to see that he was a heck of a lot smarter (or perhaps luckier) than I gave him credit for.
In that vein, I must admit to finding a couple of recent nuggets re his choice of Warren for Inauguration invocation to be interesting. First, Melissa Etheridge’s partner, Tammy Lynn Michaels, shares that Etheridge had quite the meeting with Warren recently:
rick is not a televangelist. rick is not falwell. rick spoke of some “stupid” things he’s said (his word, not mine), some missquotes that were given, and lots of ammunition from the media. all excellent points. (we’re all war-minded right now, you know. it’s easy for the media to distract us by throwing us into our own verbal wars here at home.) ) what to do, what to do…. the rest of the public is given an animation of rick warren… and then my wife meets the man behind the projections, the quotes, the “OTHER SIDE”. and he is warm, caring, effusive, and LOVES gays. since he nearly swallowed honey when he hugged her, i tend to believe him. he wants our gay marriages to be just as respected and embraced as the straight marriages. he just wants to wear his yamaka, and me wear my hat.
If you read the whole thing (recommended), that last part makes more sense.
So that’s the first nugget. And now, John Aravosis over at AMERICAblog notes that Rick Warren has pulled anti-gay language from his website:
So Rick Warren pulled the anti-gay language from his church Web site. The site used to explicitly ban gays from membership in the church.
Now the offending language is gone, but you can still find the anti-gay language via Google’s cache.
I’ve mellowed out a bit re the Warren pick. I still think he’s a terrible choice, and not just because of his stance wrt gays or gay marriage. But there’s something to be said for the fact that there is conversation going on that wouldn’t have happened but for the choice.
I’m not sure that pulling offensive language off a website is the end-all, be-all. Ditto with Warren’s embrace of a major gay celebrity. But maybe it’s a start?
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our modern culture -- especially diet. Beth writes about ancestral health, health policy, & mindfulness. And cats! 
