A black pastor supports protests against Rick Warren

With all due respect to many civil rights leaders, the planned protests regarding the selection of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration, and to deliver the keynote address at the Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church in January are justified. 

While expressing some disagreement with Rev. Warren's views about gay people, most leaders have generally defended his invitations to participate in these events based upon the conviction that both Barack Obama and Martin Luther King, Jr. stand for reaching out to persons of divergent views and bringing them together in dialogue.

While there is great value in such a conviction, the fact is that Rick Warren has not been invited into a dialogue at either occasion. He has been invited to invoke God's presence on behalf of the nation at one occasion and to speak in tribute to the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. at the other.

To be sure, if Reverend Warren had been invited into a dialogue about marriage equality, he most likely would have declined, given that his absolute confidence in the truth of traditional marriage makes him blind to any other truth that transcends tradition. How convenient it is to forget that slavery, sexism and war all have longstanding precedence in tradition, but tenuous validation in truth.

If Barack Obama or the King Center had selected Reverend Jeremiah Wright to speak at these auspicious occasions, more than a few persons would have become agitated to the point of having their heads explode. Why?  Because many would have seen Reverend Wright's selection not as an invitation to dialogue, but as an affront to their national solidarity and their personal dignity (though Reverend Wright has not stood publicly against equal rights for any American). Apparently, anger about America's historic and current racism is totally unacceptable, while denial of equal rights based upon sexual orientation is not only to be tolerated, but given center stage.

The hope of Barack Obama and the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. do not find their fulfillment in political expediency, religious protocol or popular consensus. Obama's hope and King's dream should inspire each of us toward a greater commitment to freedom and equality for all persons. Indeed, it will take Americans of every race, religion, class, culture and sexual orientation to tackle the challenges which now confront us as a nation.

I am certain that gay rights groups and their allies would certainly prefer to be joining hands and hearts with the Obama administration and the King Center in the quest to re-vitalize the American economy, improve public education, save Social Security, provide universal health care, protect the environment and end the war in Iraq.

Instead, we must now deal with the sting of having been again slapped in the face by fellow fire fighters before we can even focus on putting out the fire which threatens to engulf everyone's house.  These 'minor' insults are actually 'major' distractions that we should no longer allow. Lest we continue to be derailed from the common aim of "liberty and justice for all", the protests must proceed.