Are gay-marriage backers making a mistake worrying about Rick Warren?

Are California gay-rights activists making a mistake by protesting Rick Warren's role in the Obama inauguration? Bob Ostertag at Huffington Post wonders why activists want to be the odd men out at the gala event -- and whether the obsessive focus on Proposition 8 makes sense:

How is it that queers became the odd ones out at such a momentous turning point in history? By pushing an agenda of stupid issues like gay marriage. "Gay marriage" turns the real issues of equal rights for sexual minorities upside down and paints us into a reactionary little corner of our own making. Yes, married people get special privileges denied to others. Denied not to just gays and lesbians, but to all others. Millions of straight people remain unmarried, and for a huge variety of reasons, from mothers whose support networks do not include their children's fathers, to hipsters who can't relate to religious institutions. We could be making common cause with them. We could be fighting for equal rights for everyone, not just gays and lesbians, but for all unmarried people. In the process we would leave religious institutions to define marriage however their members see fit. That's how you win at politics, isn't it? You build principled coalitions that add up to a majority, and try not to hand potent mobilizing issues to your opposition in the process. We have done the opposite. Instead of tearing down the walls of privilege enjoyed by the nuclear family, we are demanding our own place at the married couples' table (leaving all those other unmarried people out in the cold).

Warren spoke on the issue in a talk this weekend in Long Beach. The Times' Tina Daunt has Hollywood's take.

--Shelby Grad

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Los Angeles Times, CA