Rick Warren, the
influential pastor of Southern
California's Saddleback megachurch, appeared on
CNN's
Larry King Live
on Monday night and denied that he has ever lobbied against gay
rights, including marriage.
King, who introduced
Warren as "an extraordinary guy" and a "great guest,"
asked the pastor how he handled the controversy that followed
his invitation to deliver the invocation at the inauguration of
President Obama.
"Yes, you know,
Larry, there was a story within a story that never got told,"
Warren said. "In the first place, I am not an antigay or
anti-gay marriage activist. I never have been, never will
be."
"During the whole
Proposition 8 thing," Warren continued, "I never once went
to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never -- never
once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop. 8 was
going."
According to Christian
publications such as the
Baptist Press
, however, Warren sent an e-mail supporting Prop. 8, the
successful initiative to ban same-sex marriage in California,
to church members on October 23.
"There is no reason
to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to
appease 2% of our population," Warren wrote in the
e-mail.
Warren referred to that
e-mail on
Larry King Live,
and downplayed its significance.
"And I sent a note to
my own members that said, I actually believe that marriage is
-- really should be defined, that that definition should be --
say between a man and a woman," he said. "And then all of a
sudden out of it, they made me, you know, something that I
really wasn't."
Warren also told King
that the well-known statements in which he compares same-sex
marriage with pedophilia and incest are a twisting of his
words.
Warren said he
apologized to all the gay leaders he knows, and that
none of them criticized him. He did not identify the
leaders.
He said he was
"oblivious" toward the Iowa supreme court decision that
legalized same-sex marriage on Friday.
Click here to follow The Advocate on Twitter.
Page 1 of 1