Ms. Steinel (aka The Portly Dyke) has a wonderful letter up about the homophobic pastor who is going to be performing the invocation in a little less than a month.
It’s worth reading. Go ahead and read it, then come back.
This paragraph is why I’m not just linking to it:
I believe that sadness is to the heart and soul as hunger is to the body — and I believe that my hunger is this: I want to be included in your diverse, but United, States of America.
And it became obvious to me what should happen.
There should be a mass invocation. Represent as many faiths as possible. All of them. Doing serial invocations, or one big one. It doesn’t matter. Oh, and include the atheists and humanists too – there are humanist invocations, y’know.
Because that is the point – that we shouldn’t have to be a homogeneous anything, and especially not a homogeneous nothing.
Perhaps some faiths would decline the offer if they had to do their public blessing alongside Buddhists, Wiccans, atheists (do you capitalize that?), or whatever. Which would be fine – as long as they were the ones choosing to not participate.
So, allow me to add my thoughts to Ms. Steinel’s. And I hope some staffer, some person at the transition teams sees this solution to the whole issue and passes it up to Mr. Obama.
Mr. Obama, I – like Ms. Steinel and so many others – believe in this new dream you brought to us:
Let us be not be a divided America, but a diverse America.
Let it start with the invocation on the day of your inauguration.