Rick Warren’s work on the environment, poverty and AIDS make him hard to pigeonhole, but a recent interview, during which he compared homosexuality to incest and pedophilia, crossed a line.

Would anyone who made similar remarks about women or Jews be invited to have an important role in the inauguration? Would such a person be received at the White House?

The Rev. Rick Warren is a complicated figure, and his pairing with the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights hero, may ultimately serve some happy purpose.

But Barack Obama’s choice illustrates that outrages against gays are tolerated at an unacceptably high level. With the passage of California’s Prop. 8, this particular outrage could not have come at a more sensitive time.

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