Obama Takes Flack for Evangelical Preacher Pick

Warren: I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.
Steven Waldman: Do you think, though, that they are equivalent to having gays getting married?
Rick Warren: Oh I do.  ...

But Obama told reporters in Chicago that America needs to "come together," even when there's disagreement on social issues. "That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about," he said.

Obama also said he's known to be a "fierce advocate for equality" for gays and lesbians, and will remain so.

First of all, Warren was Barack Obama's selection. While it was announced by an inaugural committee, the buck stops with the man at the top of the food chain. He wouldn't have the anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-science, church-and-state-merging Warren up there if he didn't think it was a good idea. After all, they are friends despite the megachurch pastor's sandbagging of candidate Obama during the Saddleback forum re: choice.

Where was this outrage when Obama appeared at Warren’s Saddleback forum back in August? The difference may be that the forum came before Proposition 8 passed in California. As for the pure politics of this, when you look at the exit polls and see the large numbers of white evangelicals in swing states like North Carolina, Florida and Missouri, as well as emerging battlegrounds like Georgia and Texas, you'll understand what Obama's up to. 

White evangelicals supported McCain over the Democratic nominee by 73 percent to 26 percent, which for Obama represented a 4-percentage-point improvement over John Kerry's showing among white evangelicals four years earlier.

Another reason to be mildly surprised by the Warren pick: Many Obama backers felt their man was bamboozled at last summer's candidate summit, when both candidates were supposed to be kept in the dark about the questions Warren would be asking. With Warren sitting down with Obama first, the pastor asserted that McCain was being kept in a "cone of silence" that prevented him from hearing the questions. It turns out that McCain wasn't even in the building and that he might have had an opportunity to catch wind of the questions. Some Obama supporters were pretty sore over it.