Warren cancels ABC appearance
By: Mike Allen
April 12, 2009 09:19 AM EST
Pastor Rick Warren, after making apparently contradictory statements about his stance on a gay-marriage measure, canceled an Easter Sunday appearance on ABC?s ?This Week? just ?moments before the scheduled interview,? host George Stephanopoulos told viewers.
Stephanopoulos said Warren?s representatives said the best-selling evangelical author was ?sick with exhaustion.? The host told viewers that he wished the pastor a speedy recovery.
Warren?s appearance would have given him the chance to clear up his claim last week on CNN?s ?Larry King Live? that he ?never once ? gave an endorsement? to California?s Proposition 8, a successful November ballot measure that banned gay marriage in the nation?s largest state.
Here?s what Warren said in an endorsement video, now on YouTube: ?We support Proposition 8. And if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8. ? I urge you to support Proposition 8, and pass that on. ? Everybody knows what I believe about it.?
http://tr.im/iCnk
Here?s what Warren said on Larry King: ?I am not an anti-gay or anti-gay marriage activist. I never have been, never will be. During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never ? never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop 8 was going. The week before the ? the vote, somebody in my church said, Pastor Rick, what ? what do you think about this? And I sent a note to my own members that said, I actually believe that marriage is ? really should be defined, that that definition should be ? say between a man and a woman. And then all of a sudden out of it, they made me, you know, something that I really wasn't. ? I wrote to all my gay friends ? the leaders that I knew ? and actually apologized to them. That never got out. There were some things said that ? you know, everybody should have 10 percent grace when they say public statements.?