National Organization for Women-NYS Denounces Obama's Choice of Speaker

ALBANY, NY (12/19/2008)(readMedia)-- We at NOW-NYS are appalled at President-elect Obama's decision that the anti-choice, anti-gay, and anti-woman minister Rick Warren will deliver the invocation at the upcoming inauguration. Our phones are all ringing off the hook! Our members and supporters are outraged by Warren's self-righteous pronouncements about same-sex love being akin to incest and pedophilia. He has even gone so far as to compare women's reproductive rights to Nazism.

Of course the US Constitution guarantees the rights of all to practice their own religions. But with his political agenda, opposing and supporting specific pieces of legislation to remove rights from women and GLBT people, Warren goes far beyond practicing religion and well into theocracy. In short Warren spreads exactly the kind of malice and divisiveness that Obama's campaign pledged to overcome.

The National Organization For Women, is horrified at Obama's placement of Rick Warren in an all-important ceremony to launch this historic presidency. Warren is the antithesis of NOW's values. We earnestly hope the President-elect will reconsider this inflammatory and insulting action, and that it does not foreshadow other elements of his presidency.