Gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson just got an invitation to give the invocation to the opening of the Inaugural Ceremonies Week. Which means, as I read it, that he’ll actually be speaking a prayer before Warren does at the actual Inauguration.

Some folks are reading this, rightly in my opinion, as an olive branch from Obama’s team to the Gay community after the outpouring of anger over his selecting Warren to give the inaugural invocation. But there’s something else that just happened here that I think is also worth paying attention to…

Rev. Rick Warren takes another jab

Recapping here: After sticking a fork in the eye of gay rights advocates by actively supporting Proposition 8 — which overturned the legalization of gay marriage in California — Warren compounded their outrage by equating gay marriage with incest in an interview with Beliefnet.

The hubbub lulled down a little over the holidays but today, he’s back, with an open invitation to any group displaced by their denomination. This is code for Episcopal congregations that oppose that church’s acceptance of a gay bishop in 2003. Earlier this week, a California judge ruled that a breakaway congregation, St. James in Newport Beach, cannot keep its property now that they have left the Episcopal Church.

So…to recap…Obama invited Robinson to give a prayer Right After Warren told the homophobes in the Episcopalian Church that he was standing “in solidarity” with them. Whether that was intentional or not, it’s something Warren and his neighbors in the kook pews can’t help but take notice of. And in fact the howling has already begun.

If this is Obama trying to be the healer, the uniter, that Bush never was and never wanted to be in the first place, then perhaps the way to read all this is, Just so you know Mr. Warren, one American’s place at the table doesn’t come at the expense of another’s… If that’s the case, if that’s the president Obama really wants to be then we are, all of us, on the brink of some very good times to be alive and be a part of.