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Two-way tolerance

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 3, 2009

The inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama is nearing and controversy has already begun to erupt about the historic event. Obama has asked the Rev. Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church and the best-selling author of the "Purpose Driven Life," to provide the opening prayer of the inaugural ceremony. That this popular and well-respected Christian leader would be tapped for the invocation has upset many on the far left and in the gay community.

Warren supported Proposition 8, the ballot initiative banning gay marriage in California, and he is pro-life. Over the past several weeks there has been a constant barrage of hateful attacks upon this decent man. Let's just put aside Warren's career of helping the poor, the HIV-AIDS afflicted and those sold into sex slavery across the world. Let's also forget that Pastor Warren has been working for peace in Africa in the midst of genocidal civil war and has pushed for increased education and literacy in the world's most poverty-stricken areas.

To his detractors Warren is a horrible man and an extremist. In their view he is not fit to give the invocation at Obama's birthday party, let alone his inauguration.

In all seriousness, though, I find the treatment of Warren sickening. Tolerance is an interesting concept, isn't it? It is easy to ask for tolerance when it is convenient, either personally or politically. Tolerating an opposing point of view, however, is quite difficult when the shoe is on the other foot.

Warren's views on same-sex marriage should not disqualify him from giving the inaugural invocation. For one thing, Obama has said he is for "marriage between one man and one woman." What's more, a supermajority of Americans agrees with the president-elect on this definition of marriage.

It is sad that so much intolerance reigns on the far left that it would seek to demonize a decent man like Rick Warren. I think another pastor, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said it best, though, while teaching on Christ, "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend."

Good advice for Warren and us all.

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