To my liberal friends

I just wanted to let you know, friend to friend, that you're coming off a little... small with all this whining and outrage about Rick Warren giving the invocation at Obama's swearing in.

I think I get to consider myself as a liberal. I put "liberal" as my political view on my Facebook, so that counts, right? I'm with you on lots of policies. Universal health care is deeply important to me. The Iraq debacle makes me feel vaguely sick to my stomach (although it has the same effect on many conservatives, I know). I am dismayed by the lack of communal responsibility our nation is willing to accept for the inequitable society we have and continue to create. I am towards the radical end of the "environmentalist" scale, and I feel strongly about creating a sustainable infrastructure, economy, and culture. I do not consider our nation a Christian nation and am willing to accommodate plenty of religious viewpoints and keep them separate from our political goings on. I worked really hard to help get Obama elected - made lots of phone calls, knocked on endless doors to identify supporters and get them to the polls, got light frostbite on my fingertips one bitterly cold day last February when I was out canvassing, and dutifully sent an email with a link to the Yes We Can video to friends in Super Tuesday states way back when.

On the other hand, I am deeply religious. I know that many people I go to church with are privately scandalized that I would dare support a Democrat, and a liberal one at that. They have this idea that liberals preach tolerance and diversity, but secretly despise all religious people and would just as soon banish them all, or at least shut them up with cleverly devised Supreme Court appointments and rulings, so they can be free to push their hedonistic agenda and kill unborn children. This straw man is sad to me and I think it's been fed to them by conniving people with their own political agendas. It dismisses what is at the core of the best of the progressive agenda - a sense of stewardship for one another and the earth.

When Obama came along four years ago and famously asserted that there were no blue or red states - but the United States - it stirred something in our nation. Obviously. Because from nowhere, we've amazingly now elected him to be our next president. There were enough people tired of this continual stereotyping and being stereotyped, of feeling rejected and misunderstood by the other side, while simultaneously believing that the "other side" consisted of radical loonies, that Obama's message gained instant traction. His talk on race, brought on by the Jeremiah Wright scandal, reinforced to me that he meant what he said. While rejecting specific statements by his former preacher, he did not reject his position. He showed understanding of how he came to have that position. And he simultaneously understood why others would be scandalized by it. He gave voice to both sides of an issue. It was like water in the rhetorical desert of our politics.

Which brings us to today. As President elect, Obama is surprising many by actually inviting people of various viewpoints into his administration. Many feared he was pretending to be rational and measured during the campaign, but as soon as he was elected his true nature as a zealous, uber-liberal ideologue would be revealed. I hope, but probably in vain, that they are reassured by many of his cabinet and other appointments. In fact, it's liberals who are most disappointed by the moderate views of most of his selections.

This week Obama invited Rick Warren, pastor of the evangelical Saddleback Church in Orange County, to offer the invocation at his inauguration. Saddleback Church holds the dubious distinction of being one of the few non-Mormon sites protested by anti-Prop-8 demonstrators. Look, I'm not an evangelical. They think I'm going to hell for not believing in the right Jesus. Ironically, Mormons get to be lumped in with right-wing evangelicals in the public's eye, while simultaneously being rejected by the evangelicals. Fun!

However, the reaction to this invitation has me dismayed. Slate's website right now has headlines wondering why Obama asked "the detestable Rick Warren to speak at his swearing in," and stating that the inauguration is "not a time for pandering." Pandering?! How about legitimizing the existence of evangelicals, who make up one fifth of our nation? I mean, is that offensive to you, liberal friend? To recognize that evangelicals exist, and might even have some worthwhile ideas and contributions to offer our national dialogue? Because Obama will be their president too. I understand that you find their ideas about homosexuality abhorrent, but would you be willing to fight for them to have the freedom to express those ideas? How about just show up in public even when not even talking about homosexuality? Would you fight for that too, or maybe even just tolerate it?

When my religious friends and I talk about politics, I try to reassure them that liberals don't hate or want to silence religious people. Liberals might resent ways that they think some religious people try to politically impose their beliefs on others, but they respect them as people and honor their freedom to believe as they do. But I guess if you try really hard, you might be able to convince me otherwise.