Rick Warren's Comparisons

The current hullabaloo over Pastor Rick Warren delivering the invocation at Obama's inauguration is -- unlike a lot of the hullabaloos of late -- warranted. In a recent interview with NBC's Ann Curry, Pastor Warren compared homosexuals with pedophiles. Such a comparison is outside the bounds of decency. The utterer of such a comparison has no business being accorded such a position of privilege at such a historic event. No ifs. No ands. No buts. End of story.

Someone who cannot make a moral distinction between homosexuality and pedophilia -- whatever they may think of homosexuality -- does not deserve a position of trust in our society. How can one who is supposed to lead us spiritually, but doesn't see that one of these is a consensual act between adults and the other is the sexual abuse of a child by an adult, provide effective spiritual leadership?

Barack Obama should revoke his invitation to Pastor Warren.

The Tragedy of Zimbabwe

The ongoing saga of the descent of Zimbabwe from prosperous to impoverished continues. CNN reports that a massive cholera epidemic is occurring on top of the massive hunger and the massive inflation. All of this began when Mugabe took a ham-fisted approach towards rectifying the injustices of colonialism and seized the arable land from mostly white farmers and gave it to his supporters, few of whom had any farming experience. There were many more ways that he could have distributed the wealth of his country more fairly without losing this intellectual capital.

I believe that Barack Obama, in his first few months in office, should offer his services to broker the peaceful transfer of power between Mugabe and, by most accounts, the rightful president of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai. As long as the incompetent and despotic demagogue Mugabe remains in any position of national power in that pitiful country, it will only continue its decline.