OBAMA'S INAUGURATION PREACHER

Mark Kleiman, Same Facts - [Rick] Warren thinks that my fellow atheists and I are automatically unfit to hold public office, because we're "arrogant" (unlike, of course, people who think they have a direct pipeline to God and therefore can tell the rest of us what God wants us to do).

Warren thinks mainstream Protestantism is "Marxism in Christian clothing."

Warren's work on AIDS in Africa consists largely of promoting AIDS in Africa by opposing effective prevention programs.

Warren's favorite African preacher is terrified of witches and hates gay people so much he wants them thrown in prison and published the names of thousands of them so his followers could persecute them..

Now, I'm not saying that Warren isn't genuinely moderate, compared to his rival "evangelical" Bible-thumpers. . . But Rick Warren is still a sick, twisted human being, and the smiling front-man for intolerably cruel and stupid policies. Intellectually and morally, he's several cuts below Jeremiah Wright (of whom I am by no means an admirer). Yet Warren, like his predecessor the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham, is treated with respect in the mass media, his many flaws airbrushed out of the picture. That's a problem.