Wednesday morning Warren replied in our letters section, and I thought I'd give him the courtesy of putting his reply in a post. It's below. I'm publishing it verbatim, rather than cleaning it up, to capture it accurately. As someone who has certainly wished I could take back a Tweet or two myself, I appreciate Warren's honesty. We disagree about many things, maybe most things, but in this treacherous political climate I respect his work with the poor as well as his willingness to engage with someone on the other political side. You can decide whether you agree with his reasoning yourself, and most of you probably won't.

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HALF of America pays NO taxes. ZERO. So they're happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES.

That's a right-wing meme spreading wildly of late. It's absolutely false. Thanks to the Earned Income Tax Credit, a bipartisan innovation adopted under President George H.W. Bush and expanded under President Clinton, it's true many low-wage workers pay no taxes and may even get government subsidies to bring them above the poverty line. As many as 47 percent of workers today pay no income tax, a number that jumped substantially during the recession. They do, however, pay payroll taxes and of course the regressive sales tax, which disproportionately burdens the poor, so it's false to say they pay no taxes. If you're not happy with the EITC, you might want to think about what it means that so many jobs pay poverty level wages in the U.S. today. The low-wage workers aren't the moochers; in fact, the subsidies benefit industries that profit from low-wage workforces. But the EITC has become a new obsession of the right wing; Andrew Leonard broke it all down here.

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The role of American evangelical Christians in popularizing anti-LGBT sentiment in Uganda and working directly with the religious leaders responsible for this bill has been explored at length since the bill was introduced in 2009. Many American religious right groups have belatedly distanced themselves from their former allies, but it seems like the damage has already been done.

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For weeks, Warren, a stalwart opponent of gay rights in this country, has refused to comment on a bill under consideration in Uganda that, if passed, would make homosexual acts punishable by life imprisonment or even death in some cases. (Salon's Mark Benjamin appeared on the "Rachel Maddow Show" recently to discuss an American whose program was an inspiration for the measure; you can watch that here.) The pastor has been under particular pressure to issue a statement condemning the legislation because of his affiliation with Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan minister who has repeatedly spoken at Warren's Saddleback church and who has unequivocally endorsed the bill. When other American Christian leaders from across the ideological spectrum issued a statement denouncing the proposed law, however, Warren declined to join them.

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Well, Warren has just done the deed, and suffice it to say, he left the gay bashing at home in Orange County. Gay-rights groups and liberals can still be mad at his presence (and understandably a little protective of separation of church and state), but it’s hard to get mad at the specific content of a prayer as stock as it gets. Pastor Rick hit all the classic notes -- the Lord's Prayer, the Shma (Judaism's main prayer -- that bit about "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one). He even danced up close to referring to global warming:

Help us to share, to serve, and to seek the common good of all. May all people of goodwill today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy, and more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet.

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Warren uses the video, which can be viewed below (hat-tip to Wonkette) to talk about his stance regarding homosexuality and gay marriage, and to attack the media and especially bloggers because of the controversy.

"The media never gets it 100 percent correct. I've never seen an in-print article that gets everything right," Warren says, adding, "The media lives for conflict. If there's no conflict, then somebody's going to create it."

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The main source for the animosity caused by the Warren selection was the pastor's intolerance of homosexuality. For example, the Web site for Warren's Saddleback Church contained language that said "someone unwilling to repent of their homosexual lifestyle would not be accepted at [sic] a member of Saddleback." The site also described homosexuality as "an enormous sin."

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An excerpt from Tammy Lynn Michaels' post, which I've left un-edited:

so honey met rick warren last night. well, she spoke to him on the phone beforehand, giving us insight into the man the media has made our latest "HE HATES YOU!" target. if i sit real still and think about it.. it's almost like reverse smear-the-queer... at times, it seems that the media presents us with target after target to smear, as if to say to us, "THIS IS THE GUY HOLDING YOU BACK!! GO GIT 'IM!!!" and it does seem that my lovely gay family is so bruised and bettered and ready to fight back (myself included), that we attack and deem someone ANTI-GAY, and ready to SMEAR, simply when they don't want the word "marriage" brought into our gay ceremonies. now, if the person doesn't want gays AT ALL, then i'm gonna chase that one down. but, i'm starting to think that there are indeed some people... some well-meaning and loving people... who are not at all ANTI-GAY, that's not why they don't want the word marriage used... they are merely RELIGIOUS. and for religious (archaic) reasons, they want to stay safe and respectful to WHAT THEY'VE BEEN TAUGHT.

let me try to differentiate the two.

let's say i am wearing a baseball cap. now what if i want to call it a yamaka? you know- it's basically the same thing, but one is missing the sun visor. i don't call my caps yamakas... cuz that is a religious name for a hat that is worn by religious people. now if i apply that thinking to this situation.... i would like to think of it as.... if they afford us the EXACT SAME RIGHTS, then who cares what it's called? ... joel and hanna can have a piece of paper with the word MARRIAGE on it, and all 1200 rights... and i can have a piece of paper with who-cares on it, and all 1200 rights. the word marriage is a religious, holy, word that people who go to church on sundays are told belongs to them. like yamaka, menorah, or matzo.

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.

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That quote is this: "We should not let 2 percent of the population determine to change a definition of marriage" -- that definition being one man and one woman for life, of course, as he states moments earlier in the video -- "that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years."

This is simply not true. Different cultures have supported different definitions of marriage, to include the following, ahem, deviations from the pastor's purported pristine, 5,000-year tradition: polygamy, marriages involving children and/or forced marriages, marriages for dowry, divorce and remarriage, and now, increasingly, same-sex marriage.

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One of the biggest reasons for that hurtful outcome was the Rev. Rick Warren, who publicly endorsed Proposition 8 in late October. He told his parishioners and reporters alike that "any pastor could be considered doing hate speech if he shared his views that he didn't think homosexuality was the most natural way for relationships." But civil marriage rights for same-sex couples had nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

More recently, he even compared same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy. He may cloak himself in media-friendly happy talk that plays well on television, but he stands steadfastly against any measure of equality for LGBT Americans.

President-elect Obama must now, as my mother used to say, put some meat on the bone. We've seen appointment after appointment of talented Americans who come from constituencies that are part of this country and that helped gain his election. Well, we're one of those constituencies who actually worked and voted for Obama, unlike Warren and probably most of his 21,000 parishioners. Yet, we're the ones left waiting for some real evidence of inclusion.

So, are we angry about Rick Warren? You bet we are. And including a gay marching band in the inaugural festivities doesn't heal this wound. It only serves to make us question the promises that Barack Obama made in his historic quest to be president. We pray we weren't misled.

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So about the only thing less surprising than the outrage that news of Warren's selection to give the invocation at Obama's inauguration is prompting among gay activists, liberals and Obama supporters generally is probably Warren's appearance on the program in the first place. Obama and Warren have often used each other to demonstrate that they'll be willing to listen to people they disagree with -- and yes, also to let everyone know that they'll be willing to anger their friends. This isn't one of those political controversies that pop up out of nowhere without warning; whether they want to admit it or not, it seems Obama's advisors brought on this fight with his own supporters knowing full well what was coming.

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So I dropped in at Change.gov. It's getting ugly.

Here's a recent post from somebody named Jacinto Hernandez:

Mr Obama,

I am writing to ask that you return the campaign donations made by myself, Jacinto Hernandez, and my husband, Charles Callahan, to your campaign. Chet and I were passionate supporters-- Chet volunteered for weeks at a local phone bank. We attended numerous rallies and fundraisers-- including one with your wife, Michelle (see attached picture) That fund raiser was ostensibly held to court support with the gay community. At that fundraiser, Michelle held my my baby and promised to "not forget us." Yet you have. We worked tirelessly for your campaign-- replacing our yard sign when it was vandalized. So why would you betray the gay community- that stood by you-- and ask Rick Warren to lead your inauguration, when his anti gay rhetoric is dangerous to our family. He also was a huge proponent of proposition 8, that has endangered our family and has eliminated the civil rights of thousands of Californians.

We gave thousands of dollars-- despite the tough economy- in hopes that are community would no longer be marginalized. Despite the passage of prop 8, we celebrated on election day. Today we feel betrayed. There are so many christian leaders who are advocates for the gay community-- why choose one who is not?

Please return our donations immediately. We made donations over a number of occaisions, frequently in response to "urgent" pleas from your campaign. Consider this an "urgent" plea as well.

Please remove us from your mailing lists and never ask us for your support again, unless you stand with us and reject homophobia once and for all.

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But the analyses and critiques are taking some interesting turns:

• Sarah Posner, who has written extensively about evangelical politics for the American Prospect, has a great essay in the Nation, which she concludes as follows: "Warren represents the absolute worst of the Democrats' religious outreach, a right-winger masquerading as a do-gooder anointed as the arbiter of what it means to be faithful. Obama's religious outreach was intended, supposedly, to make religious voters more comfortable with him and feel included in the Democratic Party. But that outreach now has come at the expense of other people's comfort and inclusion, at an event meant to mark a turning point away from divisive politics."
• Ezra Klein of the Prospect discusses what the choice means for "inclusiveness," ostensibly the principle gain of inviting Warren: "The going explanation for Warren's presence on the inauguration podium is that 'this aims to be the most open and inclusive inauguration in history,' as Linda Douglas, a spokeswoman for the inauguration committee, told Politico. It's a peculiar definition of 'open and inclusive.' Warren, after all, is the only preacher giving the invocation. He will not share the stage with a rabbi, an imam, a monk, and an episcopalian. And Warren is not being chosen because he himself is open and inclusive . . . The tolerance Obama is asking for, in other words, is not from Warren. It's from the LGBT community, and women. He is asking them to be tolerant of Warren's intolerance. It's a cruel play, framed to marginalize the legitimate anger of those who Warren harms and discriminates against."
• And Mark Kleiman has some fun imagining if a similar move had been made in Iran: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has chosen a fundamentalist imam to give the opening prayer at the next meeting of the majlis. The Hojatolislam Rukh al-Warun is considered 'moderate' by Iranian standards, but that merely illustrates how completely insane Iranian Islam has become. For example, asked whether sharia supported 'taking out' George W. Bush, al-Warun replied, 'The Prophet, Peace be upon him, has said, 'Allah puts government on Earth to punish evil-doers.' And it is written in the Holy Qu'ran that evil cannot be bargained with; it must be brought to an end. That is the legitimate goal of government.' "

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Though abortion is but one issue, and there has arguably been some movement and even growing agreement between the candidates and parties on other issues (e.g., human trafficking and environmental protection), in the end not much in the way of news or new commitments was elicited from either Obama or John McCain. I'm guessing few evangelicals changed their candidate preferences as a result. Perhaps some nonevangelicals did, and that is an important electoral consequence.

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Gilgoff presses Warren about whether John McCain had an unfair advantage. Warren gets very, very defensive. But even if there was no intentional favoritism -- even if McCain was just running late to the debate -- why did Warren very plainly claim as Barack Obama was coming onstage that McCain was at that very moment in some soundproof room. Last time I checked, this violates one of the Commandments. This is the exchange:

Dan Gilgoff: Some Obama supporters are claiming that McCain saw the questions before the forum began, giving him a leg up on Obama.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/08/18/warren_two/feed/ 14 http://www.salon.com/2008/08/18/about_him/ http://www.salon.com/2008/08/18/about_him/#comments Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2008/08/18/about_him "It's not about you."

That is the first line of Rick Warren's mega-selling, self-help, orthodoxy-lite book, "The Purpose-Driven Life." Funny, but that forum Saturday night with the two major presidential nominees sure looked like it was a lot about Rick Warren.

Warren talked about how both men are his friends. He often spent longer on questions than he needed to. He made a big fuss taking photos, first, with him and Obama, then with Obama and McCain, and then just with McCain.

It was more than a glory-shot moment for Warren. It was his evangelical moonshot.

And the message as he bounded around in his moon boots? Move over James Dobson and the rest of you haters: The mantle of Billy Graham and Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell has been passed to a new generation of leaders, and that new generation is me.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/08/18/about_him/feed/ 17 http://www.salon.com/2006/12/02/obama_155/ http://www.salon.com/2006/12/02/obama_155/#comments Sat, 02 Dec 2006 19:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/12/02/obama As he opened his remarks Friday at a World AIDS Day summit at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, Republican Sen. Sam Brownback said he was feeling a little more "comfortable" than he did the last time he shared a stage with Barack Obama. "We were both addressing the NAACP," Brownback explained. "They were very polite to me  [but] I think they kind of wondered, 'Who's this guy from Kansas?' And then Barack Obama follows, and they're going, 'OK, now we've got Elvis.'"

Figuring their joint appearance at an Orange County evangelical church finally put the shoe on the other foot, Brownback turned to Obama and said, "Welcome to my house." The audience of evangelicals howled with laughter. But when Obama had the chance to speak a few minutes later, he returned to what Brownback had said: "There is one thing I've got to say, Sam: This is my house, too. This is God's house."

Everyone laughed again -- neither Brownback's opening nor Obama's comeback were offered with the rancor that a cold retelling of them probably suggests -- but the point had been made anyway. In Obama's eyes, at least, the Republican Party can no longer claim ownership of all things evangelical.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/12/02/obama_155/feed/ 34 http://www.salon.com/2005/10/01/ashley/ http://www.salon.com/2005/10/01/ashley/#comments Sat, 01 Oct 2005 22:56:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/01/ashley Last March, the media devoted days to the tale of a young Atlanta woman who'd negotiated her way out of captivity at the hands of a fugitive murderer. It was a gripping story that was impossible to ignore. And with the moral-values hullabaloo of Election '04 still echoing nationwide, religious conservatives levitated the story to the realm of fable.

Ashley Smith, a 27-year-old widowed mother with a young daughter, had been taken hostage in her own apartment by Brian Nichols, an African-American man who had fled from an Atlanta courthouse where he'd just shot and killed four people, including a judge. Round-the-clock coverage focused on how, during her ordeal, Smith pulled out Rick Warren's mega-selling evangelical book, "The Purpose-Driven Life," and read to Nichols from a chapter called "Using What God Gave Me" to gain his empathy and trust. He eventually let her go, and she alerted the authorities, who arrested Nichols without incident.

"I think God gave this young lady a supernatural empathy and compassion for someone that most anybody else would have tried to kill," the Rev. H.B. London, a vice president for ministry at Focus on the Family, said back on March 16. "Every Christian organization in the country will want to tell her story."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/10/01/ashley/feed/ 1 http://www.salon.com/2005/03/21/money_driven/ http://www.salon.com/2005/03/21/money_driven/#comments Mon, 21 Mar 2005 23:59:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2005/03/21/money_driven Speaking of the religious right and exploitation: A Salon reader alerted us to an intriguing email from Andrew Accardy, an executive vice president of Purpose Driven Ministries, regarding last week's media frenzy over hostage hero Ashley Smith. The ministry affiliated with Rick Warren's blockbuster Evangelical book, "The Purpose-Driven Life" (which Smith reported was instrumental in persuading her captor, Brian Nichols, to free her and her daughter), wanted to make a point about its benevolent intentions with regard to the headline news. From the email:

"From: Purpose Driven Ministries
"Subject: God makes the waves, and we just ride them
"Date: 17 Mar 2005

"Dear Colleague in Ministry,

"As Rick Warren taught us in his book, The Purpose Driven Church, our job as church leaders is to recognize a wave of God's Spirit and ride it. God makes the waves, and we, like experienced surfers, just ride them ... Only God could create a wave of this kind, allowing Ashley Smith to share her testimony across the country while generating interest in a discipleship tool such as 'The Purpose Driven Life.'

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