Warren on Proposition 8

[Update, 10-April-2009] Watch the video and read the transcript from Larry King's interview of Rick Warren.

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[See first Update below].

Rick Warren interview:

Proposition 8 was a two-year campaign in the state, and during those two years, I never said a word about it until the eight days before the election, and then I did make a video for my own people when they asked, "How should we vote on this?" It was a pastor talking to his own people. I've never said anything about it since. I don't know how you take one video newsletter to your own church and turn that into, all of a sudden I'm the poster boy for anti-gay marriage.

[Hat-tip, Marty, in our comment section.]

UPDATE

Maggie Gallagher writes in the National Review Online:

He dodged. Rick said, more or less: I am not now and never have been an anti-gay-marriage “activist.”

Let me be clear: I have enormous respect for Rick Warren. What has happened to Rick, who did nothing more than speak from his pulpit to the members of his own church on Prop 8, is what lies in store for many good men and women. The deal they will be offered by the government and the culture dominated by same-sex marriage is: Mute your views on marriage so you may continue your other good works. Many good and brave people, to preserve their ability to save lives in Africa or protect the poor in this country, will take that deal.

I’m not here to criticize him or them, merely to point out the underlying power of the movement that can get a Baptist minister to recant about marriage on national television.

The following remarks were left in our comment section:

Marty:

Seems to me he simply doesn't want to be painted with the broad brush of "anti-gay pastor" that so man others have been -- and as so many gay activists are eager to do. As he says in the link: "There's a lot of hatred out there. People don't realize that you don't have to agree with somebody to love them."

Peter Hoh:

It demonstrates that vociferous propaganda and huge bank rolls confound not just legislators "philosophically opposed to gay marriage," but also prominent pastors like Rick Warren.

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Identity politics is at its most effective when emotion rises above reason in public discourse. In democracies this is a vulnerability that is mitigated through principles of good governance. The SSM campaign has had a corruptive influence both on public discourse and on governance. This was made very clear in the recent pro-SSM opinion of the Iowa Supreme Court and in the pro-SSM arugmentation used in the legislature of Vermont.

Take it seriously. It is not about justice. For the proponents of gay identity politics, it is about "just us".