To Mr. Obama From His Newly Gay Constituents

"I cannot sit here idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham." -- Dr. King, 16 April 1963

The news of your choice to honor Rick Warren with the privilege of delivering your inaugural Invocation -- on a day that so many of us worked for with every wit, penny or hope we had -- has caused more pain and sadness than you can imagine. Because any invocation that issues from Rick Warren cannot be an appeal to a higher power's blessing but a conjuring of the basest spirits plaguing and dividing the American people.

While you may be right that the American people and in particular, that your supporters are "noisy, diverse and opinionated', Mr. Obama, civil rights are not an opinion. Civil rights is not one side of a balanced disagreement and it was saddening beyond expression to hear you frame the rightful and widespread recoiling from your choice in this way. Contrary to the headlines, it's not only the gay community that has been hurt by this choice to showcase Warren. It is also women like me who believe our choice is inherent and who seek to safeguard it for our daughters. It's also those of us who will never countenance anti-Semitism no matter the fount, and especially those of us who will never agree to the idea that there are some people in our society who are not fully human and so, whose life and dignity are somehow available as a bargaining chip in political negotiations.

Normalizing this group of institutionalized bigotries is what Rick Warren does for a living.  

I can't know why you chose Warren but, with respect, it cannot be as a credible gesture of unity. The authoritarian right reads all such gestures as surrenders and surely you know that. Reaching out to Warren and all he stands for (all that he advocates, anyway, in his cottage industry of division and disrespect) is to reach out to discrimination and so, to exclusion -- the antithesis of the purpose you describe. One of the very particular delights in your candidacy was a pleasure in your nimble intelligence, education and sweeping empathy. It's exactly because of such bright promise that seeing you embrace this destructive man and hearing you invoke "inclusion" is particularly painful. How can it be our moment when the man you've chosen to hail an Almighty advocates against the human dignity of so many? Adding that negative man to our national celebration is clearly subtraction, not addition.

It may be that the American people have for once surprised even you, Mr. Obama. It may be that for once, we're a little ahead of your estimation in our appreciation and in our respect for our fellow citizens and so, can calmly and rationally tell you: Rick Warren cannot possibly represent us well enough to summon any greater spirit of peace and strength and unity from his toxic, public positions of dehumanizing exclusion and ofdivision. Especially not on the one day every four years when we yearn most to cohere as a people. I hope coming to know we're a little better than we seem to be, noisy and diverse and opinionated as we are, is not an unwelcome surprise to you.

On the night of your election, you reminded us that what we had achieved was only a chance to effect change. While you seem to be saying your goal is to bring us together as a nation,  trading political cover to discrimination cannot result in unity. On the contrary, it's the premature precluding, the closing off of our hard won chance. That surely is the old politics that you so often dismissed on the stump. As Dr. King said in a letter you might recognize, "I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends."

May you see the wisdom of that affirmation anew so all Americans can share the joy of your inauguration on that so long awaited day.