Rick Warren and the inaugural invocation

President-elect Barack Obama’s invitation of the homophobic hatemonger Pastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation has naturally generated a lot of controversy.    Other than Fred Phelps, it’s hard to imagine a worst possible choice.   On a day when the nation is supposed to be united, why choose a bigot who wants to deny millions of gay and lesbian Americans their fundamental human and civil rights?  Rick Warren may be as popular as the many others before him who preached hate but he certainly does not deserve the honor of being invited to give the inaugural invocation.   In the 1930s, Father Charles Coughlin also enjoyed popular support but, as far as I know, he was never invited to give the inaugural invocation.    Inviting someone like Rick Warren is just as bad, if not worse, as inviting someone like Fred Phelps or Charles Coughlin.

But all the criticism of the invitation extended to Rick Warren misses the most important thing:  the inaugural invocation or prayer is an unconstitutional tradition that must be abolished as it has no legitimate place whatsoever in a ceremony in which the head of a modern secular state takes office.