Rick Warren was on Larry King last night talking about, among other things, the controversy that stemmed from the decision to have him deliver the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration due to his support of Proposition 8 and his past anti-gay statements.
Of course, Warren is now claiming that it was all a phony controversy as he never really supported Prop. 8 and never really said anything that was anti-gay:
WARREN: Larry, there was a story within a story that never got told. In the first place, I am not an anti-gay or anti-gay marriage activist. I never have been, never will be.
During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never — never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop 8 was going.
The week before the — the vote, somebody in my church said, Pastor Rick, what — what do you think about this?
And I sent a note to my own members that said, I actually believe that marriage is — really should be defined, that that definition should be — say between a man and a woman.
And then all of a sudden out of it, they made me, you know, something that I really wasn’t. And I actually — there were a number of things that were put out. I wrote to all my gay friends — the leaders that I knew — and actually apologized to them. That never got out.
There were some things said that — you know, everybody should have 10 percent grace when they say public statements. And I was asked a question that made it sound like I equated gay marriage with pedophilia or incest, which I absolutely do not believe. And I actually announced that.
All of the criticism came from people that didn’t know me.
KING: Well…
WARREN: Not a single criticism came from any gay leader who knows me and knows that for years, we’ve been working together on AIDS issues and all these other things.
Of course, here’s Warren back in October saying that he strongly supports Prop. 8 because “we should not let 2 percent of the population determine to change the definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years”:
King also asked Warren what he thought about the recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling, but Warren refused to discuss it, saying he’s “totally oblivious” because “that’s not even my agenda.” But then later in the program Warren admitted that he doesn’t “think that the definition of marriage should be changed,” so presumably he has some thoughts on the court ruling but has decided not to share them because doing so would just provide more counterevidence against the thing he is desperately trying to claim – namely, that he’s got nothing against gay people and is not an anti-gay activist.
