As a Californian who volunteered many hours and donated what little money I had to elect Barack Obama, I feel our President-Elect has gone out of his way to poke me in the eye by bestowing the honor of delivering the invocation during his Presidential inauguration to the homophobic, anti-woman, anti-equality bigot Rick Warren. I’ve not been one to carp about Obama’s cabinet appointments, preferring to see the logic of governance in his choices. But Warren’s selection, while not being a cabinet appointment and though purely symbolic, really hurts.

It beats me how someone like Warren who has actively worked to impose second-class citizenship on large groups of Americans deserves such a great honor as to participate in an official capacity in the nation’s highest ritual affirming democracy. Does President Obama expect national unity to arise from the legitimation of a religious bigot with a Presidential seal of approval? Just because Warren advocates intolerance in a less vociferous voice does not make him less of a religious bigot.

Warren’s selection reeks of political pandering to the evangelical right while it simultaneously suggests to the millions of Americans who slogged to help elect President Obama – including women, LGBT and anyone who cares about tolerance and equal rights in this country – that their sensitivities and votes are trumped by those of the evangelical right. Way to go for an historic inauguration. If I were in a more charitable mood, I’d say this was a diabolical plot by the Congressional inauguration committee, headed by the tone-deaf senior Senator from California Dianne Feinstein, to dampen enthusiasm and discourage the hordes of Obama supporters who were going to descend on the Mall for the occasion.