Hell hath no fury like a homosexual seemingly scorned. That seems to be the lesson learned by the media in the immediate aftermath of Barack Obama's announcement that he will have Rick Warren - pastor of the 20,000-member Saddleback megachurch in Lake Forest, California - deliver the invocation at his presidential inauguration next month. Warren is most famous for his bestselling book, "The Purpose-Driven Life," his godly attempt to imitate motivational speaker Tony Robbins, as well as the genuine good works he does in poverty-stricken corners of the world. Lately, however, he's been involved in less benign activities, namely the campaign to pass California's Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment stripping gays of their court-ordered right to marry. Pastor Rick represents the new face of evangelical Christianity in America in that he puts a friendly sheen on homophobia, delivering the requisite line that he supports "equal rights" for everybody and that some of his best friends are gay, he just doesn't want them to have the same rights as heterosexuals. Oh, and legitimizing their "lifestyles," he says, would be akin to accepting bestiality and incest.

Gay activists were understandably angered by this announcement, and they made that anger felt. Joe Solomonese, head of the Human Rights Campaign, the country's most prominent gay rights organization, issued a public letter to Obama calling his decision a "genuine blow to LGBT Americans." The denizens of the Huffington Post have been expressing their rage, and the popular gay blog Queerty went so far as to claim that Obama "spat on the gays." Adorable lesbian Rachel Maddow called it "the first big mistake of his post-election politicking."

Color me not outraged. In part because amidst all the righteous indignation (something that professional gay activists never seem to lack) over Obama's selection of Warren to deliver his inaugural invocation was his simultaneous choice of Joseph Lowery, a black pastor, civil rights leader and, important for the purposes of the controversy du jour, gay civil union supporter, to deliver the benediction, or news that Tammy Baldwin, the only openly-gay Congresswoman, was named an honorary co-chairman of Obama's Inauguration Committee. "I'll leave those who are upset to their calling," Lowery remarked when asked for his views on l'affaire Warren, suggesting that the perpetually-outraged gay Left might want to reconsider their behavior with what they claim their life's work to be. Did the dons of the gay lobby ever stop to question whether Lowery and Baldwin's presence on the dais would similarly upset the Bible-thumpers? Not for nothing did John Gallagher and Chris Bull call the gay movement and the religious right, "Perfect Enemies." More than one person has seriously suggested to me that the Reverend Fred Phelps, he of "God Hates Fags" fame, might actually be a plant on the gay rights lobby's payroll.  

Invocation, benediction, what's the difference? Apparently, a lot. "The person selected to deliver the invocation has the honor of serving as the spiritual representative for the entire nation," writes Leah McElrath Renna. Perhaps I missed it, but there is no "spiritual representative" of our constitutional republic, and Renna does her cause no bit of good by ascribing such official significance upon a private citizen like Warren, a man whom most Americans did not know about until gay rights activists raised such a stink, and upon further investigation sounds like a pretty nice guy not deserving of all the insults heaped upon him. The uproar over Warren has the detriment of confirming one of the worst stereotypes of homosexuals: hysteria. That's because Warren is the lowest common denominator of the socially conservative evangelicals. Up until the Proposition 8 fight, his political involvement extended to such hot-button, "culture war" issues as fighting African AIDS and poverty. Aside from the incest/bestiality slip (which was an effort, however clumsily executed, to make a slippery slope argument rather than a serious attempt at morally equating daughter/dog love to homosexuality) Warren has never really used his high public profile or pulpit to preach hatred of gay people, something that can hardly be said of the long list of Elmer Gantryesque charlatans the GOP has surrounded itself with over the past 30 years. Asked what was a "greater threat to the American family - divorce or gay marriage," Warren answered, "That's a no brainer. Divorce. There's no doubt about it," which makes him far more honest than most politically involved conservative evangelical preachers. Count me as being a member of the pragmatist gay camp (not to be confused with theater, dance or other camps), encapsulated by my friend Chris Crain, who writes, "It is a stroke of political brilliance to recruit a conservative megapastor in support of a president-elect who is arguably the most pro-gay, pro-choice and progressive in our history."

The problem for gay activists is that many Americans agree with Rick Warren when it comes to same-sex love. And these people, numbering in the over 100 million range, are not going to be budged in their views by hectoring activists who call them bigots (even though that's what many of them are). Now, I'm of the firm belief that these debates will be moot in 20 years, when the older generation kicks the bucket and the near-universally gay-accepting Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers take the reins of government. Whatever political victories they feel that they've won from Proposition 8 and the other marriage amendments across the country, the anti-gay forces of reaction in this country are gasping their last breath. The honest ones among them acknowledge this, if not publicly. We will hasten the day of gay equality by engaging respectfully with them and winning over the persuadable ones (many of whom, I bet, are followers of Warren), rather than calling them names.  

In that vein, gays would do well to store their gunpowder for the truly significant legislative battles that will no doubt be fought in the years ahead. Getting rid of the odious and national security-weakening "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" regulation, repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and Matthew Shepard hate crimes law will all be possible over the next four years now that we have a Democratic president and Congress committed - at least on paper - to effecting these positive changes. If gays had given Obama some much-needed slack on Rick Warren, perhaps he'd feel a political debt to us when these truly significant issues come up for debate. But how sincere - or politically threatening - will gay complaints about administration foot-dragging on issues that actually affect millions of gay and lesbian people sound in light of the unwarranted outrage that's been generated over the guy who's going to deliver a two-minute reading that no one will remember? Attacking the President-Elect who campaigned as the most pro-gay candidate in American history over an issue as irrelevant as this one, I fear, makes us look like we're crying wolf. And we all know how that fable ended.

Most of the reactions to the passage of Proposition 8 in California have been marked, understandably, by outrage and scorn. However, a group of celebrities decided they would use humor as their tool for activism. In this hilarious video, stars like Allison Janney (who will always be C.J. Cregg to me), John C. Reilly, Margaret Cho, Sarah Chalke, Maya Rudolph, and Rashida Jones band together for "Proposition 8: The Musical." Jack Black has a special cameo as Jesus, and Neil Patrick Harris, whose voice is still in prime condition after "Dr. Horrible," shows up to bring it home.

A few weeks ago I went to see the new Andy Warhol exhibit, "Warhol's Jews," at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Though I've never cared for Warhol or his artwork-- his refusal to truly speak about the themes of his work and apathetic political stance hardly excite the senses-- I wanted to see what he'd done with such a highly charged theme. Not Jewish himself, Warhol thought the portraits (of 10 famous Jews including Sarah Bernhardt, Albert Einstein and Gertrude Stein) would sell well and gain much media attention, a fairly standard reason for creating work in his personal history.

I went into the exhibition hoping to at least see a process I could attach to, a narrative of the creation of the work which would propel it from this purely fetishized pet project into a theoretical framework which challenged the way viewers perceived Jewish identity and stereotypes, or even classical portraiture. As far as process, all we really got was a list of famous Jews-- some not even Jewish, but put on the list (and later crossed off) because of the "-stein" at the end of their surname-- that had been compiled as prospects for the project.

What the exhibit did make me think about was identity, interlocking oppressions, and our responsibilities to each other in the realm of human rights. As a queer man, Warhol never chose to connect the dots between the marginalization of queer artists, misogyny, racism or anti-Semitism. After the passing of Prop 8 this past election (and the following outright racism of the white, queer public throwing daggers at people of color for, according to statistics, voting predominantly yes on 8), I have to think more and more about how marginalized and oppressed communities view themselves in relation to each other. Much of the "No on 8" propaganda borrowed, without recognition, tactics and themes from the Civil Rights movement of the '60s, furthering the problem of a gay rights movement that has been historically racist. After the election, Dan Savage wrote a blog for The Stranger with the a call to arms that seemed to take a "we scratch your back, you scratch ours" approach: since queers voted for Obama, couldn't people of color vote no on 8? This tactic, of course, completely excludes a critical look at the history of the gay rights movement and where its focus has been: on assimilating (white) queer people into the heterosexual mainstream, one whose building blocks are all those interlocking oppressions I've mentioned here already. This brings into question the whole importance of the gay marriage issue, and what it means today: is a key into a club founded on misogyny, homophobia, and racism one that the queer community wants to fight so valiantly for when we are in the midst of a global war, when there is little access to basic health care for so many, when our prisons are so disproportionately filled with men of color, when rent is sky high, when fear is the main course of most of our days?

This is a jumping-off point, and one which I will be exploring more in upcoming blogs. Simultaneously occupying the space of "queer" and "Jewish" can be an exciting, powerful, radical force of change in both these communities if we choose to make it so. In upcoming weeks I'll be posting interviews with queer Jewish artists and activists, as well as drawing connections between various facets of our identities that can interact in complex and playful ways.

Recommended reading: www.gayshamesf.org/archives.html (essays from Gay Shame SF, a radical queer activist community)

A good measure of how badly someone wants something is how he goes about trying to get it. Fringe political candidates, blocking traffic in their flag-capes and foam Statue of Liberty crowns, don’t really want to be president—they just want an hour in the limelight before returning to their jobs at Circuit City and Jack in the Box. I would hope that gay marriage is taken more seriously than that by its proponents, but so far I’ve seen quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

As I’ve written previously, I support gay marriage. It would be dishonest to claim that I have much of an emotional investment in it, though; I didn’t wail or gnash my teeth when Prop 8 was defeated on the California ballot. I was disappointed, because the vote meant that a majority of my fellow Californians had not been persuaded by what I think are eminently reasonable arguments. What I did not think, despite the best efforts of the gay marriage lobby, is: I am surrounded by rabid hatemongers.

Americans are a notoriously impatient people. Consider the argument that gay marriage will take us down the slippery slope to polygamy. By implication, polygamy is so strange, so alien, that even the most fearful conservatives acknowledge it’s a long way off. Does this make any sense? There is far more historical, not to mention biblical, precedent for polygamy. Gay marriage is the truly alien concept; it does the movement no good to pretend otherwise. It stands to reason that millennia of taboo and discomfort do not vanish overnight because you waved a “NO ON H8” banner in the Castro. And yet, as any right-thinking person knows, the culprit must be hate!

I’m not convinced, partly because in the absence of any emotional response to the issue I took some time to come around to the pro-marriage side of things. I saw marriage as one of two things: the sanctification of a relationship before God, in which case the state has nothing whatsoever to do with it, or a completely secular practice designed to encourage social cohesion by providing for the welfare of children, as well as of one or both partners. In that case, then why not vote for more social cohesion?

I was surprised when I learned, belatedly, that in California homosexuals can already enjoy, under the name “civil union,” the same financial and social benefits that accrue to other married couples. It really is all about a word! And as a person who cares about language—I object, for instance, to the substitution of “right” for “privilege” in discourse about health care—I can understand the complaint. Why should it be implied by a word that heterosexual marriage is more meaningful than homosexual union?

It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be implied that any union effected by the state means anything other than tax breaks, inheritance rights, hospital visitation privileges, heath care, and so forth. If it’s sanctification you want, find a church, or get a flute and some incense and play dress-up on your own time—whether you’re gay or straight.

The trouble is that voters who oppose gay marriage on such dispassionate grounds will still be branded bigots. And they won’t like it. And they’ll cast protest votes against gay marriage, because they don’t like to be called monsters on the grounds that they make decisions based on logic rather than emotion, or faith rather than logic, or—take your pick, they don’t like to be called monsters at all.

The prevailing attitude among gay marriage supporters seems to be that if it doesn’t actively bother you, you’re obligated to go along with it, whether or not you think it’s philosophically defensible. Justice used to be blind; now it’s meant to be “chill.” If you have lingering doubts, legal, practical, religious, or otherwise, about something that’s been verboten since the dawn of man, you are an asshole or an idiot, end of story. Here’s a little tip for the gay marriage lobby: Calling people assholes and idiots never persauded them of anything. As an old question has it, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to win?”

The victory of Barack Obama was muted in California, as his historic election was accompanied by the passage of Proposition 8, a ban on gay marriage.

While lots of other states have outlawed marriage between same sex couples, this is the first time that the rights of gays have been rolled back. More than 18,000 couples got married this spring and summer after the California Supreme Court overturned an earlier amendment that banned on same-sex marriage. Those marriages are now in limbo, and future gay marriages are again taboo.

Now I have many friends who are gay and who have been involved in long term relationships. Many of them had filed for domestic partner status with the state or various cities. Some of them had even rushed down to San Francisco's City Hall in 2004 after Gavin Newsom ordered the city government to start marrying people.

Some of these people took advantage of the brief opening in California law to get legally married. And as a straight person, it seemed strange at first to refer to the partner of a friend as her wife. But seconds later, it was wonderful, because she really was her wife. She wasn't some other kind of semantically-challenged partner -- but an actual wife. It seemed revolutionary and obvious at the same time.

That right is now gone. And it has hit people hard. While much of California is delighted over Obama's election, residents here also have a sense that we are a state of bigots, of one group willing to deny others their rights.

Of course California has a long history of denying people their rights. In the mid-19^th century, the Chinese who had come to the west to build the transcontinental railroad were vilified. They were called "Celestials" and were ascribed horrible habits and morals. In 1871, in fact, residents in the small city of Los Angeles rioted against the Chinese. They lynched and killed 19 Chinese men, even hanging some of them from a gate post. California - and the country's - history is littered with violent and mean acts against minorities. The passage of Proposition 8 is one more example of American intolerance.

On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court decided to review the legality of Proposition 8 using that rationale. The court wants to determine if the proposition uses majority rule to strip rights of a minority group. That action is considered discrimination and it is outlawed in the state constitution.

As soon as the judges indicated they would consider the case, however, conservative activists threatened to start a recall election against any judge who voted to overturn the gay marriage ban. That is blackmail.

Part of California's problem is that it opened up the workings of government to its citizens in 1911 when it elected the Progressive Republican governor Hiram Johnson. He had run on a platform that criticized the dominance of the Southern Pacific Railroad and other business interests. To lesson the grip of industry, California offered citizens the right to recall politicians and circulate petitions and submit them to become law. Johnson also backed women's suffrage and the direct election of U.S. Senators,

But the system has gone haywire in California in so many ways. Legislators now shy away from making hard decisions and passing tough bills. Instead, they punt and put the issues on the ballot.

Citizens can circulate initiative petitions. If they collect enough signatures the petitions are placed on the ballot to be voted on. This process has become an industry in California. Professional organizations hire people to collect signatures. All it takes is enough money. Now if you go to the grocery store, chances are that you will be approached by someone carrying a batch of various petitions on a variety of subjects and asked to sign.

But when these petitions are approved by voters and become law, they cannot be changed by elected officials, so bad laws stay on the books forever. The only recourse is the courts.

It will be at least six months before the California Supreme Court decides the legality of Proposition 8. We have the inauguration of Barak Obama in January to look forward to. I just hope that the generous nature of California, rather than the bigoted one, ultimately prevails.

Frances Dinkelspiel, author of Towers of Gold, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and she'll be here all week.  Stay tuned.