The Twelve Days of New Year's: 8 Aspects of (Rick) Warrengate

1) Rick Warren pick announced alongside mentions of Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma

The "Purpose-Driven" preacher: just another part of the celeb-encrusted Jan. 20 circus ... right? Wrong.

2) The Human Rights Campaign writes their Dear Barack letter

On December 17, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), one of the country's leading advocacy groups for GLBT rights, responded to the Warren pick with this straightforward letter:

"Dear President-elect Obama -

Let me get right to the point. Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans. Our loss in California over the passage of Proposition 8 which stripped loving, committed same-sex couples of their given legal right to marry is the greatest loss our community has faced in 40 years. And by inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table."

Soon after, HRC canvassers were seen walking the rainy streets of Boston, asking if busy passerby "had a moment to spare for gay rights". (For the sake of full disclosure, this Bostonist did, in fact, have a moment.)

3) The Much-Quoted Gay TIME Columnist

John Cloud throws down the gauntlet the day after:

"Obama has proved himself repeatedly to be a very tolerant, very rational-sounding sort of bigot. He is far too careful and measured a man to say anything about body parts fitting together or marriage being reserved for the nonpedophilic, but all the same, he opposes equality for gay people when it comes to the basic recognition of their relationships...People seemed to feel that once he had won, he would find a way -- in his contemplative style -- to help convince Americans that gay people really do deserve basic equality. Instead, he has found a way to insult gay people deeply."

4) Barney Frank weighs in

Boston's own Barney Frank was quoted on Dec. 22 as saying of the Warren pick: ""I think [Obama] overestimates his ability to get people to put aside fundamental differences."

5) MSNBC's lesbian wunderkind Rachel Maddow gets mad, then madder

After a predictably flabbergasted monologue on the Warren pick after it was first announced, Maddow returns to the subject when Warren releases a new video. "Not only is it getting worse, it's getting weirder," she says, then rolls tape, reviewing Rick Warren's bizarre, "Leave Britney alone!"-style diatribe on the Saddleback Church website.

6) Frank Rich isn't angry, he's just disappointed

Rich, who wrote rhapsodic editorials about Obama every week during the run-up to November 4, is clearly disappointed in his guy, calling Obama's dismissal of Warren's controversial stance toward gay marriage as just one in a "noisy" nation "too cute by half." Rich writes, "[Obama] knows full well that a 'viewpoint' defaming any minority group by linking it to sexual crimes like pedophilia is unacceptable."

7) The Axlerod Appearance: David Gregory takes the reins on Meet the Press

Amidst talk of Hamas and the tanking economy, new MTP host David Gregory slipped in a mention of the Warren pick, using the above quote from Rich's editorial as a starting point. From the transcript:

MR. GREGORY: ...Let me just point out that Rick Warren did liken gay marriage to a brother and sister marrying or to an older guy marrying a daughter. Do you think that the president-elect has risked offending the very people who put him into office?

MR. AXELROD: Well, look, Rick Warren and the president-elect have had a dialogue for some, some time, David. They've had a dialogue about things on which they agree, such as fighting poverty and reducing the terrible plight of-the terrible disease that, that crosses Africa. And they've, and they've had a dialogue about things on which they disagree, such as civil rights for gays and lesbians and a woman's right to choose. But the important point here is that you have a conservative evangelical pastor who's coming to participate in the inauguration of a progressive president, and this is a healthy thing and a good thing for our country. We have to be-we have to find ways to work together on the things on which we do agree, even when we profoundly disagree on other things. And that's how we are going to build bridges of understanding and move this country forward. And that's what Barack Obama promised as a candidate. That's what he's going to deliver as president.

MR. GREGORY: But is--isn't the question for all those progressives, all of those new registrants to the Democratic Party, when you promised a progressive presidency with a progressive candidate, and then you get this...

MR. AXELROD: David, we've got to get beyond this sort of politics where we're each on the jagged edge of a great divide, shaking our fists at each other...

There's more to this conversation, of course, but with Axlerod standing in, as he often does, for the Big Man himself, one can see that Obama's not quite ready to give the equivalent of his Jeremiah Wright Race Speech just yet.

8) The "Let's Focus on the Larger Issues" article on HuffPost

Despite David Quigg's improbable title for his article, written in response to Rich's column ("What Would Obama Do If Obama Was Mad At Obama About Rick Warren?"), Quigg may have the most constructive response to the controversy, from a pro-GLBT-rights point of view: there's no revenge like success, so let's work on winning some tangible legal victories, not fighting symbolic battles. He goes on to quote a few wise words from Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals and advises those who are "mad at Obama" to think about what No Drama Obama himself would do to win this one: namely, strategize and move forward. Quigg finishes with this thought-provoking flourish:

"Those of us whose sense of justice cries out for marriage equality may need to compromise to achieve it. But we won't need to settle for 30 percent. Nowhere close.

The tide is with us. Unless we get distracted.

We've seen what that's like.

Rick Warren's inaugural prayer is the central front in the struggle for marriage equality in the same way that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was the central front in the War on Terror.

Focus."