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President-elect Barack Obama's announcement that Saddleback Church pastor and opponent of gay marriage Rick Warren will give the inaugural invocation continues to drive headlines. This weekend, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is openly gay, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer "giving that kind of mark of approval and honor to someone who has frankly spoken in ways that I and many others have found personally very offensive, I thought that was a mistake for the president-elect to do."

At a press conference last week, Mr. Obama explained his decision. "A couple of years ago I was invited to Rick Warren's church to speak, despite his awareness that I held views that were entirely contrary to his, when it came to gay and lesbian rights. That dialogue, I think, is part of what my campaign has been all about, that we're not going to agree on every single issue," he explained.

"Mr. Warren compared same-sex couples to incest. I found that deeply offensive and unfair. And the president-elect was wrong when he said, well, he invited me to speak; I'm just inviting him to speak," Frank said Sunday. "If he was inviting the Reverend Warren to participate in a forum and to make a speech, that would be a good thing. We should have these. But being singled out to give the prayer at the inauguration is a high honor."

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This post was written by CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder:

One reason the Rick Warren thing is a big deal is because, after Bill Clinton, the gay community is unusually sensitive to getting the shorter angle of presidential triangulation. It is hard to overstate the optimism and excitement that gays and lesbians felt in 1992. But the optimism deflated spectacularly after "Don't Ask, Don't tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act, not to mention President Clinton's sneaky 1996 ad boasting about DOMA, which aired only on Christian radio.

Clinton was willing to say the word "gay" in public and appear in black tie at the Human Rights Campaign dinner, but, in the eyes of the gay political community, his commitment to gay rights vanished both times it counted most.

Relative to other minority groups, the LGBT community is disproportionately dependent on the goodwill of the president, because almost all of their big-ticket agenda items are federal laws (the military, DOMA repeal, hate crimes, ENDA, the Permanent Partners Immigration Act, etc.). And relative to other minorities, gays still want and need basic reassurance that they are an ordinary part of American life and politics. So everyone is peering anxiously at Obama wondering if he is going to let them down like Clinton did.

You can read more about the growing controversy here.

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This post was written by CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder:

One reason the Rick Warren thing is a big deal is because, after Bill Clinton, the gay community is unusually sensitive to getting the shorter angle of presidential triangulation. It is hard to overstate the optimism and excitement that gays and lesbians felt in 1992. But the optimism deflated spectacularly after "Don't Ask, Don't tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act, not to mention President Clinton's sneaky 1996 ad boasting about DOMA, which aired only on Christian radio.

Clinton was willing to say the word "gay" in public and appear in black tie at the Human Rights Campaign dinner, but, in the eyes of the gay political community, his commitment to gay rights vanished both times it counted most.

Relative to other minority groups, the LGBT community is disproportionately dependent on the goodwill of the president, because almost all of their big-ticket agenda items are federal laws (the military, DOMA repeal, hate crimes, ENDA, the Permanent Partners Immigration Act, etc.). And relative to other minorities, gays still want and need basic reassurance that they are an ordinary part of American life and politics. So everyone is peering anxiously at Obama wondering if he is going to let them down like Clinton did.

You can read more about the growing controversy here.

President-elect Barack Obama's announcement Wednesday that Pastor Dr. Rick Warren will give the invocation at the inauguration has set off a firestorm of criticism from liberal and gay rights activists.

Warren is the best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life and other books, as well as the pastor of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. He is known as a "new evangelical" who stresses issues like poverty and climate change alongside other traditional conservative Christian issues. He also hosted a forum at his church in August with both Mr. Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain.

His selection by Mr. Obama further cements his place as one of the nation's preeminent religious leaders and also is seen as a clear sign to reach out to evangelical and conservative voters who didn't support him in last month's election.

But it is Warren's strong opposition to abortion and particularly gay marriage which has many on the left up in arms over him being given such a prominent role in the inauguration.

The Human Rights Campaign, the largest homosexual rights organization in the U.S., sent a strident letter to Mr. Obama, urging him to reconsider and calling the invitation "a genuine blow."

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