Despite Warren, Calif. Gays Celebrate Obama

Gathering at West Hollywood gay bar hiss at controversial pastor's invocation
By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 20, 2009 5:27 PM CST
Despite Warren, Calif. Gays Celebrate Obama
A bar.   (Flickr)

A crowd gathered today at West Hollywood’s premier gay bar to celebrate Barack Obama’s inauguration, but also to watch with dismay as Rev. Rick Warren took the Capitol stage, the Advocate reports. Many in the community were shocked by Obama’s choice of the anti-gay marriage pastor to deliver the invocation—and many hissed or left the room during Warren’s invocation.

Obama styled the choice of Warren as reaching across the aisle, but the gay community felt betrayed by a candidate who had loudly proclaimed his anti-LBGT credentials. The bar filled with boos during Warren’s speech, particularly when the Proposition 8 supporter spoke of a “commitment to freedom and justice for all.”

(More Inauguration Day stories.)

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