High hopes

As someone who enthusiastically voted for President-elect Barack Obama on Election Day, I am deeply disappointed in his choice of Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration ["Aretha Franklin to sing at Obama inauguration," Politics, Dec. 18]. Warren is a divisive figure who is a vocal opponent of abortion and gay marriage, does not believe in evolution, has supported the assassination of foreign leaders and calls more-moderate Christian leaders "Marxists."

The choice of Warren is a kick in the teeth to Obama's hardest-working supporters.

The Washington, D.C., pundits are always happy to see Democratic leaders slap their liberal supporters around in the name of bipartisanship. It is a futile effort. The extremists of the religious right will not be appeased by mere symbols and will view Obama's reaching out as weakness and a sign of their own importance.

It is time to stop validating these extremists and their claim to represent American Christianity. They represent a radical fringe that should be marginalized and ignored. Obama had a chance to empower the mainstream of moderate Christianity and blew it.

-- John McKay, Seattle