Moderate or be Marginalized.

I think this is the message Obama is sending pastor Rick Warren.

And this is why I think the comparison to "what if Obama had a racist or anti-semite up there on stage" misses the point.

Nelson Mandela was a master of using white supremacists as stage props against white supremacy. His message was moderate or be marginalized. There is no try.

Obama's statement about being President for all Americans, not just those who support him or voted for him, is much like Mandela's for similar reasons. Both are inheriting a massively divided country threatened with economic ruin and split into cultural factions accustomed to hating each other. Oh ... and both are black men taking over countries long exclusively ruled and owned by whites.

Pastor Rick Warren has likened abortion to the Holocaust. Which means, I guess, that women and their doctors are Nazi death camp operators. Offensive? In the extreme. But also the position of the Catholic Church, which places abortion as an even higher sin than war. And won't let women be priests. Warren and the Pope are closer on most issues than they are apart.

But unlike abortion rights, which will remain constitutionally protected thanks to Obama's election, equal rights for gays do not yet exist in the United States. Obama has inherited what LBJ inherited from JFK. It is now on his shoulders to cleanse the legal stain of homophobia forever. LBJ did it by turning arms counterclockwise to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- the same year Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for the crime of trying to do the same thing.

Someone asked of the inauguration, "why are gays being asked to take a punch in the gut for inclusiveness?" Well, from the view of a lot of folks on the Right, Warren is taking a punch in the gut for inclusiveness by showing up on stage with a bunch of gay-loving baby killers and their Muslim AntiChrist Presleydent.

And remember, it is just a stage. And all on it are merely players. Perhaps Obama will say, be excellent to each other ... or else.

Obama might be doing this just to get Warren to talk to Rev. Lowery. You never know where and when an Epiphany can take place.

Christ, Warren might come out of the closet.

Now wouldn't that be an historic inauguration?