Rick Warren, Fabricator

Put aside, for the time being: Rick Warren's reminders that his church has been very active in good works here and abroad; his views on abortion; his views on gay rights.

Consider, for now, only what Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and the minister given the tremendous honor of giving the invocation at the inauguration of President Obama, has said about gay rights. Here is the applicable passage from his interview with Steve Waldman of beliefnet.com:

The issue to me, I’m not opposed to that as much as I’m opposed to redefinition of a 5,000 year definition of marriage. I’m opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I’m opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I’m opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?

Oh , I do.


And here is Reverend Warren, in comments beginning at 2:53 of this video from Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, claiming

I have been accused of equating gay pernerships with incest and pedophilia. Now, of course, as members of Saddleback Church, you know, I believe no such thing. I never have. Uh, you never heard me once in thirty years talk that way about that.

Reverend Warren, asked whether incest, pedophilia, and bigamy are "equivalent to gays getting married," replies "I do." Then in a message which Maddow says came from a message he recorded and placed on his website (clearly intended primarily for his own congregants), the evangelical pastor says of "equating gay pertnerships with incest and pedophilia," "I believe no such thing. I never have."

If this latter statement is correct, Reverend Warren was lying in his interview. And if it's not correct, he's lying now. As a Christian minister, he understands better than most that none of us is perfect. But he appears to have forgotten the passage, extended from the Ninth Commandment, from Leviticus in the Old Testament: "You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another."








Merry Christmas....................................................... Happy Chanukah