A central theme of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was a return to civility — the long-lost ability for Americans to disagree without being disagreeable, perhaps building bridges to progress on a host of issues.
Getting there won’t be easy, as the president-elect found out last week.
Obama came under fire from some of his strongest supporters after inviting the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the opening prayer at his inauguration next month. Warren, founder of an evangelical megachurch in Southern California, is a rock star among pastors. He hosted a nationally televised campaign forum with Obama and GOP presidential nominee John McCain at his Saddleback Community Church in August, and wrote the phenomenally successful book, “The Purpose Driven Life,” which has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.
He has also become notorious to plenty of his contemporaries for not being conservative enough. It seems his support of the fight against global warming, the millions of dollars he and his wife have put toward helping people with AIDS and his views against the use of torture to combat terrorism don’t match the social agendas of some other evangelical leaders.
Where he does agree with them, although far less loudly, is in his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. It’s the latter that has some Obama supporters outraged over the choice of Warren for what is seen as a high honor.
We see it as a gesture in keeping with what Obama called for so eloquently during the campaign: reaching out, talking, listening, looking for common ground. The president-elect noted last week that his choice of the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil-rights hero and advocate of same-sex marriage, to deliver the benediction at the inaugural underscores that point.
Warren endorsed California Proposition 8, in which voters last month overturned a state Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage, but he didn’t contribute to the campaign or make appearances on its behalf. Warren is not a conservative lightning rod in the Jerry Falwell mold — far from it. His good work against AIDS, environmental degradation and illiteracy is guiding thousands of followers and improving millions of lives.
He could be a bridge between ultra-right-wing social doctrine and a more progressive worldview, just the kind of figure that would appeal to a bridge-building president.
Americans have been shouting at each other too much for too long. It’s time to try a different approach, even if it isn’t always easy.
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