Gay Bishop to Deliver Invocation at Inaugural Event
Filed by: Michael Crawford
January 12, 2009 3:00 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2009/01/gay_bishop_to_deliver_invocation_at_inau.phpOpenly gay Bishop Gene Robinson has been invited by President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural committee to deliver the invocation at a concert held at the Lincoln Memorial. The concert will be held on Sunday, January 18th and will be the first inaugural event that President-Elect Obama will attend.
This announcement follows weeks of controversy over the Rick Warren being named to deliver the invocation at the inauguration. The debate has been intense on Bilerico with Alex, Bil and I expressed different points of view on Warren.
The most on point analysis of how things have played out comes from Ezra Klein.
Politicians respond to incentives. To noise. To anger. Warren, on some level, was a response to the loud protestations of evangelicals who believed the Democratic Party had no place for them. It's hard to see Robinson is anything but a response to progressive activists who sense that Obama was more willing to risk cross those who supported him than those who opposed him. Erase the anger from either side and it's not worth Obama -- or any president -- taking the risk to placate them. But this is a step in the right direction. This is genuinely inclusive. If it was the plan all along, the Obama administration sure did a good job keeping the secret. And if it wasn't, then equality activists have something to be proud of this morning. They changed the incentives.
