Today I went to a knitting store in Orange County, my county. I asked the clerk about a certain yarn, did it have to be doubled. She showed me her splendid rainbow shoulder bag which looked tie-dyed like something from a Grateful Dead concert. I jokingly asked if she was on acid at Woodstock when she made it. She whispered, "some people ask me if I am gay." I said, "You should tell them yes, it could be fun." Lowering her voice even further, she said it would not be funny as it was a Christian store. I relied, "It wouldn't stop me."

I live in the infamous OC. Home of St James Anglican Church, which does not allows gays. Home of Disneyland which offers insurance to gay families. Home of the Angels, the Mighty Ducks, the Clippers. Home of Loretta Sanchez and Dana Rohrabacher. The epicenter of the NO ON 6 Campaign, temporary safe-haven for Anita Bryant, home of Rick Warren's church in Lake Forest.

There is no mistake about the world famous OC; mega conservative, fundamentalist Christian, republican with great beaches and world-class waves. If you visit the website of Rick Warren's church you will find teachings promoting the submission of the wife to the husband. In addition to classifying gay people with pedophiles and practitioners of incest, he has been very vocal that women who have had abortions are no different than the Nazis and their uterus, he likened to Auschwitz.

It is nice that Melissa Etheridge wants to have a détente with Pastor Rick. She thinks that it is important that he meets some gay people who have families and family values. I hope they have a prosperous exchange. But here's the point. Why not pool your resources, gay and straight, Christian and compassionate and have a Summit of Understanding. Why not hold a Parliament of Religion like the one in 1923 in Chicago. Invite people of all faiths to promote understanding and demonstrate the ability to sit and talk and be civil(ized). Invite some women who have had abortions, some doctors who have done abortions, some gay families, some gay ministers and, even, some of those super conservative Anglicans and super-liberal Unitarians.

That is where all of this should be going. That is the organic coalition that would truly demonstrate CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. But you DON'T offer this renown bigot, outspoken hate-monger, homophobic, misogynistic man in the Western world, the biggest pulpit in history and say it is just a gesture of inclusion and goodwill. We are not that stupid and, frankly, neither are you Mr. Obama. You know this is an outrage.

So here's an idea ~ put together a team for the invocation; three or four people who actually represent and LOVE the diversity of America. Please do not put forth the worst of us who needs to be educated, explained and apologized for; this man who can validate every family who judges and condemns their gay relatives. Put forth a face, or set of faces which tell all the world who we are, who we hope to be, who inspires the change we can believe in.

I watched a very interesting movie tonight, Gandhi, My Father. It is the tragic story of Harilal Gandhi who could not please his father and died a beggar, a drunk, a widower who left his children. No matter how much we might elevate M.K. Gandhi, he was just a man whose vision operated within the confines of his exquisite lens. Harilal wanted everything his father had and had the luxury to renounce. Bapu, the Father of India, was strict, unforgiving and could not let his son drink deeply from life to make his own decisions on what to embrace or renounce. It was as if Gandiji expected his son to merely adopt his hard-earned lessons; rather than learn them himself. He seemed to think that since he learned something, Harilal could/should just accept the outcome without learning it himself.

But make no mistake, Harilal wanted father-love, mother-love, wife-love, child-love ~ family. He wanted family. I wonder if children of famous people might really find this story maddening ~ not comforting at all. In the light of the news today I cannot help but make layered parallels with that of the gay son or daughter wanting father-love, mother-love, a lover, children ~ family. Isn't that really what all of the prop 8, Rick Warren, gay issue is about?

There is a group of people who want to just be welcome at the table of humanity. They want to have a partner, children, dinner, a productive life (could I be so deliberate as to say a "purpose driven life"?). And there is push back from people whose tables have no room for difference. Gandhi named the unwanted Indians, the lowest caste, the harijan ~ the children of god. He inversed their fate of being born as an untouchable, not welcome at any table but their own, by naming them god's favored.

Rick Warren's Saddleback Church is that table which wants no harijan. Homosexuals may not join. Does he really think that his god will not invite homosexuals to the heavenly banquet? If Rick does have some inside line on that, I am certain that lots of people would not want to be at that table by their own choice.

My own seeking soul has traveled the world through a library card; searched religions, faiths, beliefs, for years and years. If Barack had asked me, or YOU had asked me, who would be a great choice to offer the invocation at this historic inauguration, I would have answered to chose someone whose table is wide, magnetic, inviting, universal and, most importantly, excludes no one.

The Tao Te Ching states that beginnings set the pace for all that unfolds in its wake. Please do not give up asking that Rick Warren be replaced as the international bell ringing in the Obama years. It could not be more important.