An open letter to the hysterical portion of the gay and lesbian community

I was going to start this post "Dear Drama Queens" or "Mr Solomonese" (the exec director of HRC), but instead just thought that I would throw my random opinion out there about President-Elect Obama's selection of Rick Warren to give his inauguration's invocation.

After the announcement of Mr. Warren's selection, the gay community erupted in fury and betrayal at Obama. Everyone from friends on facebook declaring their befuddlement, to the aforementioned Joe Solomonese speaking out on TV and radio new blurbs.

I admit, I don't pay the closest of attention to current events or the bullshit people do to one another. As much as I may joke about the Chris-police, my real prejudice lay with the way people treat each other on a one to one basis. How we interact in an interpersonal way. Groups aren't my thing. Groups don't have feelings, people do. On a grand scale, what's right for an individual should be acceptable for a group they are a part of; neighborhoods, churches, unions, cities and our country as a whole owe it to their members and citizenry to honor the individual with their actions as a group. Whether it be marriage equality for gays and lesbians being put before the general public in a vote-which is really just the hate mongers exploiting a loophole in the election process and putting the gay and lesbian community under the control of 90% of the population, and how fair is that?-or the President-Elect's right to choose his inaugural players to reflect who he is as a person and what he stands for as a President.

That's what he did.

He put together a winning campaign based on his vision of America. Inclusion. Land of Opportunity. All men are created equal. The right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness.

In his victory, he has set aside partisanship politics to assemble a cabinet of experts, not cronies from his personal life or political party which is what we have become accustomed to. So why should we be surprised or outraged that his inauguration is any different? He has chosen Rick Warren to give his invocation. Someone who preaches hatred from the pulpit-in my opinion, although those loyal to him would fervently disagree with me, and that is their right. He has balanced that out with a benediction address from Joseph Lowery, who is an advocate for gay and lesbian rights and full equality rather than a "separate but equal" type solution. The downside is that a level headed approach to conflict resolution doesn't play well on Fox News or the other commercially driven news programs who are dependent upon ad revenues for their network's income so poor Joe and his positions are not as widely familiar as Ricky-Retardo's.

Nonetheless, as a people I think that my community owes it to their country to take this in stride and look at the larger picture.

Unity.

If we allow ourselves to step outside our roles as citizens and look at the situation from a strictly unilateral standpoint, we cast ourselves in the role of fodder for the hate mongers on the other side. Indeed, we make their point for them. We are unstable, selfish, emotionally driven, small picture citizens that cannot be trusted with the power their income and voting power does afford them.

So man up, bitches. We have to ride this out and postpone our reactions until Obama's plan has officially been set in motion. If is fails, we can say "we knew it", if it succeeds then we save ourselves the humiliation of having to apologize for our behavior and reestablish our credibility as a sub-culture in our country.

And let us not forget that we pretty much fell in love with Barack because he is a friggin brainiac. Do we really have the hubris to tell this man he has not properly considered his actions after the two year campaign he has just come off of? Are we really going to be short sighted enough to think that any words Rick or Joe utter during their moments-and that's what they are, moments-in the spotlight have not been properly dissected for message? Trust me, those two are on a tight leash, every syllable vetted for meanings outside the incoming ruler of the free world's vision of unity.

Death to fags will not pass over Mr. Warren's lips during his invocation, trust me.

What he stands for in his own pulpit is one thing, there is a symbolism behind the pulpit he will populate on January 20th. That symbolism is Unity, just as this jackass has a home in this country, so do we all. That is what our country is all about.

Of course, to successfully complete this post, I had to set aside my feelings on both organized religion and our country's fundamental failure to maintain it's own charter of a separation of Church and State, but that's what a big boy I can be when I want to be.