Pastor Rick Warren Responds to Proposed Antigay Ugandan Legislation

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of the bestselling book The Purpose Driven Life, drew fire last year when he was invited to give the invocation at President Obama's inauguration. His support for Proposition 8 in California, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman only, and his anti-gay-marriage views concerned many in Obama's base.

Now Warren's on the defensive again, this time for his affiliation with Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan pastor who has endorsed proposed legislation in Uganda that makes certain homosexual acts punishable by life in prison or even, in some cases, death. Ssempa has made appearances at Saddleback and has been embraced warmly by Warren and his wife, Kay.

In October, Warren distanced himself from Ssempa and the Ugandan legislation, saying, "Martin Ssempa does not represent me; my wife, Kay; Saddleback Church; nor the Global PEACE Plan strategy," a reference to Warren's work in the developing world and Africa in particular.

But Warren won't go so far as to condemn the legislation itself. A request for a broader reaction to the proposed Ugandan antihomosexual laws generated this response: "The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations." On Meet the Press this morning, he reiterated this neutral stance in a different context: "As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides." Warren did say he believed that abortion was "a holocaust." He knows as well as anyone that in a case of great wrong, taking sides is an important thing to do.

The left wing blogosphere is going absolutely nuts over this.

For example, the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan says in Rick Warren, Silent Enabler Of Hatred:

This is an act of terror and murder against an already beleaguered minority, and Warren is an accessory to it. As a powerful figure in distributing AIDS funding in Uganda, he cannot bring himself to oppose a law that would condemn someone in a gay relationship to death, and imprison him or her for touching another human being, and inciting a wave of informing on family members and friends and acquaintances in order to terrify a sexual minority. This alleged man of God cannot speak out on this - except to protect his own p.r. His schtick of actually being the nice evangelical - a schtick that got him to Obama's inauguration - is a lie. If he cannot condemn this fascist act of violence against a tiny minority of vulnerable human beings, then his position in this struggle is clear enough.

Or you have Think Progress' screed, Pastor Rick Warren Refuses To Condemn Ugandan Law Making Homosexual Acts Punishable By Death. (Note: I won't bother with this one)

And if you were to do a news search on this, you'd see it only goes downhill from there.

I'm not a fan of Rick Warren, but when one can successfully manage to get the moonbats in this much of a froth, he must have done something right.

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