Rick Warren is a piece of shit (and other reasonable conclusions)

As these cold, dark December days slog by and George W. Bush intensifies his desperate campaign of telling the world that he's not such a bad fascist after all, I can't help thinking that inauguration day seems too far away. In fact, I'm so atwitter by the prospect of returning to an era of reason that I've been compiling my Official Inauguration Checklist, aided by a contingent of frothing media types who write wordy, fawning stories daily about the upcoming extravaganza. Here's what I have so far:

* Performance by the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin (check)
* Reading by Elizabeth Alexander, a renowned black poet (check)
* Speech by Sen. Diane Feinstein of California, the Bay Area Badass (check)
* Invocation by evangelist Rev. Rick Warren, an insane religious zealot and renowned gay basher (check)

Ah yes. An affair to remember. And perfectly planned! This way, right before I enjoy the Constitutional passage of the torch to the nation's first black president and celebrate the official end of the Bush era, I can listen to the thoughtful remarks of a raving madman who symbolizes everything I hate about America.

Are you fucking serious? Rick Warren? Obama, I love you to pieces man, but please, please stop pretending that you give a crap about the religious right. I mean, you fucking won! It's time to let your hair down. Don't you remember the campaign? These are the same people who spread a rumor that you were a Muslim and your wife was an atheist. This is the level of intellectualism we're dealing with here.

Look, I understand that the United States is not a liberal nation. I get that the union is strung together by blocs of ultra-left and ultra-right, and the majority lands in the middle. We're a moderate country, and that is reflected in the incoming Cabinet. But Rick Warren is not a moderate; he's an extremist. We're talking about a shameless and delusional culture warrior who compares abortion to the Holocaust and supports the assassination of foreign leaders. This man has dedicated his life to brainwashing frothing masses into believing an all-powerful God actually cares if two insignificant people of the same insignificant sex living on one insignificant rock in one insignificant galaxy shack up and call themselves "married."

Rick Warren? Not exactly a great start to the era of reason.