There's no controversy here!

First of all, I am a huge supporter of the separation of church and state, believing that the state should stay out of religion and that religion should stay out of state. That does not mean removing religion from the public square, but instead meaning that the state can't show favoritism to any religion. So, there is no controversy in regards to separation of church and state at the inaugural ceremonies. The incoming President can choose whomever he wants to do prayers, assuming he wants anyone to do prayers at all. This aspect is entirely up to him and should remain so. In addition, those invited should be able to pray their conscience rather than feeling bound by some secularist notion of political correctness, otherwise we could have a monkey give the prayer. If you invite someone to pray, they should be allowed to pray as they see fit. Period. Otherwise, don't invite them. The next part of the supposed controversy here is that Rick Warren is opposed to gay marriage. Well, first of all, the pastor doing the benediction is a gay marriage supporter, so I'd argue that Obama is following through with his promise to be inclusive of all people and all points of view in inviting two pastors with diametrically opposed viewpoints on some issues. Secondly, being against gay marriage is not hateful nor discriminatory. In fact, if the LGBT community would get over their insistence on calling it marriage, I believe they'd find a large number of political supporters in the evangelical community. However, they are unhappy with civil unions or a secular, state run equivalent to marriage. It must be called marriage or it isn't equal, they insist. They completely ignore (and this isn't just Christianity) that most world religions see marriage as being instituted by God, not by man, and therefore, religious writings take precedence over secular ones in defining it. Thus, the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, etc. share the same view in regards to religious teachings. There is nothing new about this. So, what does this mean for believers? In simple terms, trying to define marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman is seen as an assault on the church, in fact, it is seen as the state imposing it's will on the church, so we are back to separation of church and state. After all, many evangelicals would look at the gay marriage debate and fear that once they win it in secular society that they would then insist on churches providing them the same rites and rituals and sacraments, etc. that are given to heterosexual couples. This may be unfounded, but that is the fear, so we do come back to a separation of church and state issue after all, don't we? The simple and logical solution is to accept civil unions and stop insisting on the term marriage, because by doing so, you serve only to alienate the church, which makes you look to be as equally hateful as you want to claim the church is being. Obama is turning out to be a very shrewd politician because he knows that the inclusion of Warren in the inaugural ceremony will be looked upon favorably by evangelicals and he claims to be inclusive. There is no controversy here, only closed minded people who are so set in the rightness of their cause that they can't use logic to compromise.