Most of my friends are pretty upset today about the news that Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor, will preside over Barack Obama's inauguration in January.

I want to start by saying I understand the concern. While Warren has parted ways with some of the more hardline evangelicals over some issues, he was in favor of Proposition 8 in California, which banned gay marriages. Not only was he in favor of it, but he campaigned for it.

Obviously, I think Warren is wrong about gay marriage. Completely wrong in supporting such a mean-spirited amendment. I've heard him talk about Prop 8 and I think he wants to have it both ways -- saying that he has "many gay friends" and isn't homophobic while equating gay marriage to poligamy and pedophilia. I think he's wrong, and Prop 8 is wrong.

Regardless of whether our country is ready for gay marriage today, it never makes sense to add discrimination to the constitution. And in part because of Warren's efforts, that proposition passed.

So I write this not as a fan of Rick Warren's.

But that said, one of the beautiful things that seemed possible with the election of Barack Obama was the promise of a presidency for ALL the people. Not just democrats. Not just gays. Not just progressives.

That means that Obama will preside over a country that will include evangelical Christians as well as athiests. Staunch Catholics and agnostics and wikkuns and everything else you can name. As the vote in California showed, we are not, as a country, united on this issue of gay marriage.

While I was very disappointed about Prop 8, it has always been my belief that true progress is the result of increased honest dialogue about issues. I think Warren shows promise in being the kind of evangelical leader that might be open to such dialogue. I'd be much more interested is hearing gay leaders (and by the way, who ARE our gay leaders?) talking about open debate on this issue with Warren than hearing about us wanting to shut him out of the inauguration.

Obama will be president to Warren's followers as much as he will be my president. George W. Bush ran his presidency as if he only cared about 50% of the population, those who seemingly agreed with his policies. Is it more right to want Obama to be that kind of president?

Feel free to disagree with me, but I'm not at all concerned about Warren offering the benediction at the inauguration. Those of us on the left need to be as open to differences of opinion as we hope those on the right will be.