Rick Warren Is Really Sorry His ‘Private’ Video Supporting Prop 8 Was Really Really Public

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Saddleback Megachurch pastor Rick Warren is really really sorry his “private” video supporting California’s anti-gay Prop 8, which he posted online to his public website on the Internet via the World Wide Web was actually really really public. Warren, whose $20 million state-of-the-art megachurch draws an audience of 20,000 to each sermon, says he had no idea his video would be seen by more than his immediate flock.

Warren, mind you, isn’t sorry he came out in support of Prop 8, a constitutional amendment which bans same-sex couples from marrying in the state of California. He’s just sorry that his message of hate went public, and he’s promised he’s learned his lesson.

Warren, 58, who infamously was invited by President Obama to deliver the invocation at his 2009 presidential inauguration, made these remarks today to the Huffington Post via a live chat (which was also public) with Marc Lamont Hill:

WARREN: I never made a single statement on Prop 8 until the week before. In my own church, some members say, “Where do we stand on this?” I released a video to my own members. It was posted all over like it was an advertisement. […]

HILL: When your have a church of 20,000 people and you have a book that 32 million people have read and that 60 million people have accessed, to say, “I was just giving a message”—

WARREN: You’re exactly right, Marc, and I learned a lesson from that. What I learned from that is that anything I say privately is now public. And I actually learned from that mistake… Everyone took that to mean I was pontificating to the whole world.

HILL: If you could do it again, would you not have made that statement a week before Prop 8?

WARREN: I would not have. I would not have made that statement. Because I wanted to talk to my own people. As a duty, as a shepherd, I’m responsible for those who put themselves under my care. I’m not responsible for everybody else.

Zack Ford and Annie-Rose Strasser at Think Progress did their homework, noting that in 2008, Pastor Rick Warren “published his ‘private’ video on his ‘News & Views’ website for all of his followers to see.”

His comments were unsurprisingly picked up by the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow.

Warren seemed to back away from his endorsement in 2009, telling CNN’s Larry King that he “never once even gave an endorsement” of the proposition. Now that a majority of Americans consistently support marriage equality, he regrets that people actually paid attention to his anti-gay views.

But if there’s any question as to Warren’s policy on homosexuality, last night he told Pier Morgan that  having a same-sex relationship is like arsenic: it may be natural, but it’s not good for you. Oh, and loving someone of the same-sex is also like wanting to punch a guy in the nose.

I kid you not.

Perhaps Warren wasn’t aware the cable TV is really really public.

http://embed.live.huffingtonpost.com/HPLEmbedPlayer/?segmentId=50b3b0e678c90a5910000025

Transcript via Think Progress