What Am I Missing?

I am about to stir up some more sh*t here, and I know I will get some flak for this post, but I am soldiering on anyway. First of all, I think by now anyone who reads my blog knows I don’t care for Obama. It’s my right, and I defend it. I don’t trust the man. I actually want to like him; I want to see what everyone else sees, but I don't. To quote Naomi Klein, (who is about as left-wing as one can possibly be), as she states in the New Yorker Magazine,

“I’ve been at rallies and seen him speak, and I find that feeling that one feels. “It is thrilling and its churlish not to allow yourself to be thrilled. We crave inspiration, and it’s a bleak life to always be dissecting things. But the main feeling that Obama creates in me is fear, because I see people fooling themselves. If you actually look at his policies, what they reflect is the triumph of the right-wing political paradigm since Reagan, and I think he could set things back dramatically, because for young people who are getting engaged in politics for the time time, for them to be disillusioned is very, very damaging.” “He’s telling regular people what they want to hear, and then in the back rooms he’s making deals and signing on to the status quo.”

Now Obama has signed on Rick Warren to give the invocation prayer at the inauguration. Rick Warren! Obama campaigned on a platform to end the extreme religious right viewpoint that has a stranglehold on America. During his campaign, anyone who didn’t care for Obama was automatically labelled a racist and a bigot. So, Obama, of all people, should understand that racism and homophobia are two sides of the same coin.

Rick Warren is opposed to stem cell research, cloning and euthanasia. He said these things were non-negotiable because “God’s word is clear on these issues.” He opposes women’s legal rights of choice, comparing it to the Holocaust. He actively campaigned for Proposition 8 in California, overturning the rights of gays to marry. As a Democrat, these were the very issues upon which Obama campaigned, and for which he was elected. "Change you can believe in."

Isn’t there something slightly disingenuous about choosing Rick Warren to give the invocation prayer? The political spin argument in favor of it is that Obama is “reaching across the aisle” and being inclusive. It is inclusive to choose a diehard right-wing extremist, whom many of Obama's supporters have referred to as a bigot, to pray at his inauguration? What am I missing here?

Ann Curry interviewed Rick Warren about this issue. My personal opinion is, it's time to get into the 21st Century, and get rid of the ignorance from the Dark Ages. And it's time to stop letting these self-righteous religious zealots have control over how people live. There is a huge difference between religion and spirituality.

Change? No, just more of the same old, same old.