The Obama team has just opened up a new front in their skirmishes with gay rights supporters over Obama’s decision to invite Rick Warren, the anti-gay megachurch preacher, to give the invocation at the inauguration tomorrow.
HBO says it was ordered by the Presidential Inaugural Committee not to broadcast the gay bishop’s prayer.
The latest incident occurred yesterday when HBO failed to broadcast an invocation delivered by openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson during pre-inaugural events at the Lincoln Memorial. Now HBO is claiming it was ordered not to broadcast Robinson’s prayer by the Presidential Inaugural Committee:

…HBO insisted in an email on Sunday night that it was not their decision to omit Robinson’s invocation, saying, “The producer of the concert has said that the Presidential Inaugural Committee made the decision to keep the invocation as part of the pre-show.”

Pam Spaulding speaks for millions:

Remember, this was the supposed salve on the wound to the LGBT community for the upcoming high-profile appearance of Rick Warren at the actual inauguration on Tuesday, which will be seen by millions and will float out there on YouTube in perpetuity. I had no illusions that Robinson’s appearance would reach the same level of exposure as Warren’s, but damn — no broadcast of it at all? That’s just freaking rich.

The hasty addition of Bishop Robinson to the lineup a few weeks ago was also badly bungled, when an Obama staffer somehow managed to channel both Clintonian truthiness and Bush stubbornness in in one short statement:

An Obama source said: “Robinson was in the plans before the complaints about Rick Warren. Many skeptics will read this as a direct reaction to the Warren criticism — but it’s just not so.”

Riiiiighhtt. Makes sense. Why would Obama want to appease homos he has just slapped in the face?

[…]