Do they get it?

Cause Célèbre is the designation of a column in the LA Times entitled: Obama's choice of Rick Warren to lead prayer dismays Hollywood liberals.

Cause Célèbre is defined as an incident that attracts great public attention. Great must be taken in context in this case: these are Hollywood liberals who are upset about the passage of Proposition 8 in California this past Election Day. Prop 8 bans gay marriage, and Rev. Rick Warren supported it openly and strongly.

From Hollywood's perspective, there's a cloud over Barack Obama's inaugural. Now the question is whether the weather that day will simply be overcast or stormy.

He has disappointed, even enraged, Hollywood types by selecting Warren to say the lead prayer at the Inaugural.

"Barack Obama is a very smart student of history," said longtime celebrity publicist and gay activist Howard Bragman. "He saw that Bill Clinton did damage to his early presidency by appearing to pander to the gay and lesbian community. Obama has chosen a different tack.

I'd say that analysis is spot on, to a degree. Obama is a great student of history, indeed, and I'd say his studies go beyond 1993.

"What he didn't realize was how much untapped energy there was in the gay and lesbian community because of the passage of Prop. 8," said Bragman. "Obama didn't realize, after all the support he got from the gay and lesbian community, we feel betrayed right now."

Actually, I'd say that Obama took a calculated step in inviting Warren: he is appealing, even pandering, to evangelicals, reaching out to them in a concrete way. Perhaps what gay Hollywood types fails to understand is that Obama will say and do things without checking with them or assessing how they will react to it.

Democratic political consultant Chad Griffin, who this week was named by the Advocate, America's leading gay publication, as one of its People of the Year, thinks that it's up to Warren to let Obama off the hook and withdraw.

That assumes that Obama is on the hook with others than activist gays and Hollywood liberals. There are many other constituencies in the country beyond those two groups.

"Rick Warren needs to realize that he is further dividing us at a time when the country needs to come together," said Griffin, whose Hollywood clientele includes Rob Reiner, Michael King and Steve Bing. "I think he needs to gracefully step aside."

Nonsense. Griffin needs to accept that his agenda is not the most important agenda.

As for Obama, Griffin said: "He has a long history of standing up for and defending equal rights. I believe and hope that calling on Warren was just a innocent mistake by the transition team."

Innocent mistake? More a calculated step. And by inviting Warren he has scored points with a constituency, evangelicals, that did not support him greatly in the election. That's being inclusive, rather than divisive.

Warren has his own history with liberal Hollywood. He was instrumental in encouraging support among evangelicals for the Al Gore-inspired, Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."

I have never heard of an evangelical doing such a thing.

Obama decries lack of decorum in politics

Hillary at State, Bob Gates at Defense, Gaithner at Treasury; President-elect Barack Obama has made appointments that are called, variously, unexpected, reassuring, disappointing, to use but a few terms bandied about the media. After being called a socialist and a pal of terrorists, domestic brand, he has shown himself to be somewhat innovative, of a different mold, unorthodox.

What he is showing is that he can not pinned down with easy labels. Not a socialist, not a liberal, not a moderate, what he is showing is that he is practical, pragmatic, unusual.

Now comes word of his choice of a preacher to lead prayer at his inauguration: Rick Warren, a conservative, outspoken opponent of gay marriage. Of course, gays and liberals are generally and loudly expressing outrage, disappointment, and everything in between. They're missing the point: Obama is not carrying out their agenda, any one's agenda other than his own.

CNN has a story: The irony of the furor over Warren's selection to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inaugural ceremony is that the California minister first drew notice for his determination to expand the evangelical agenda beyond hot-button social issues like opposition to same-sex marriage.

Of course, every one has a story about it. The Wall Street Journal's story:

Rev. Rick Warren is discovering that it's hard to be both America's Pastor and a Leader of Religious Conservatives. Barack Obama's selection of Mr. Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration has infuriated many Obama supporters -- especially advocates of gay marriage -- in part because of comments Mr. Warren made in a recent interview with me for Beliefnet and The Wall Street Journal.

So on the one hand you have Mr. Warren, in effect, equating gay marriage to marriages based on incest, pedophilia and polygamy. But if you look at the whole exchange on gay issues -- and, indeed, the entire interview -- you see Mr. Warren trying in other ways to chart a moderate path.

Pretty explosive stuff. But that is not all there is to Warren. Of course, gay advocates can't see past that.

He started by acknowledging that divorce is a much bigger threat to the American family than gay marriage -- and chiding fellow conservatives for focusing on gay marriage more. He also said he supported civil partnership laws, a position which just got a top official fired from the National Association of Evangelicals. And later in the interview he said that Christianity has been harmed by religious conservatives focusing too much on politics.


Mr. Warren does have legitimate claim to being a powerfully influential spiritual leader. His "The Purpose Driven Life" is the best-selling non-fiction book in history. His decision to reverse-tithe -- he keeps 10% and gives away 90% -- is inspiring to many, forcing all of us to ask: Am I doing enough?

He spends much of his time cradling the most destitute children in the world and trying to convince American Christians -- especially conservatives -- to do more. He speaks about his faith with a sense of joy that is infectious and he acknowledges his own spiritual doubts in a way that gives permission to followers to cultivate an intellectually-honest spiritual journey.

An interesting person, to say the least. And quite an interesting choice.