I am not used to watching much TV, so this day of saturation in the Obama presidential inauguration felt very different indeed. Being on the west coast, we had to pop out of bed and run for the TV to catch the first coverage this morning.

For one thing, I was embarrassed and underwhelmed by Rev. [1] Rick Warren [see also post 307, “[2] Obama, the Whirwind and the Serenity Prayer“] who gave the Invocation this morning. It was embarrassing because he didn’t follow the assignment, but used his few minutes not as a prayer but as a head-down speech about what a great time it was to be a Christian. On a day when President Obama’s vocabulary was lofty, Warren’s was chatty, in that made-for-television pious “wejeswanyataknowJeeezus” folksy way of praying. And of course, in exclusionary and utter tasteless terms, he insisted on offering his prayer in the name of Jesus/Yeshua and a few other versions of the name that immediately segued into The Lord’s Prayer. I bet the transition team never asked for any of that, and expected something with more refinement, charity and grace out of Warren.

In contrast, the [3] Benediction offered by the Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowery was inclusive and dignified, in a way we have come to expect from black Pastors who can speak to and for a wide variety of human longings in the public space, and especially from one such as the “dean of the ciivl rights movement.” Lowry’s prayer was memorable, I thought, but Warren’s was completely forgettable.

[4]

Mr. Obama’s speech was far-reaching and, to be sure, critical of the immediate past yet without a sharp edge to stab his predecessor. [5] Read the full speech here, courtesy of ABC News. All new presidents like to claim the high ground, make great claims and offer great dreams. What impressed me this morning was that Obama’s claims and dreams were very grounded in the reality of our immediate challenges (two inherited wars, American financial/moral meltdown and what is being called The Great Recession, an outgoing administration with historic low public approval ratings) but built from that ground up on the basis of his faith in personal integrity, responsibility and character : his, and every other citizen’s.

In a less-quoted line, President Obama simply pushed America to grow up and to face its global challenges as a mature nation:

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

It was a great day to catch up on history, of course. At one point, the analysis on MSNBC that drew out some of Obama’s historic references about slavery, President Lincoln, racism and discrimination mentioned in passing the Dred Scott Decision. At my age that is only a label on a segment of my brain labeled “High School/American History Class” that I don’t often think of. For some reason, I decided to Wikipedia and Google the [6] Dred Scott case before the Supreme Court, and what unfolded in a few seconds was another of those portraits of national shame like the slaughter and forced relocation of American Indians or the World War II-time internment of Japanese-American citizens.  Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his freedom because his master has relocated him from a slave state to a free state. His case was complex, and eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which came down with a decision that ought to still shame us for its lack of justice. It was bad enough that the Court determined that Congress did not have the authority to free slaves in U.S. territories, or to grant “negroes” citizenship (and therefore legal standing to sue!). But the Supreme Court went on to describe black people as

“beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

As if that wasn’t the supreme insult, the Court made it utterly clear why blacks should be denied justice:

It would give to persons of the negro race . . . the right to enter every other state whenever they pleased, . . . the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.

I don’t think the implications of this last reactionary view was lost on the white population, i.e., if the negroes had rights, they would use them, and they would arm themselves and come after us.

The more I read the more I understood why the Dred Scott decision which enforced the deprivation of human rights to an entire race of people outraged and inflamed the debate over slavery in 1857 and continued to fuel racism in America for another century. Is it any wonder that it is taking so long for LGBT people to gain full civil rights and the respect of other human beings in our society?

[7]

Above, Lincoln reading a draft of the Proclamation to his cabinet.

As horrible as the Dred Scott decision was, it took five and half more years for President Lincoln to issue a presidential Proclamation that the slaves in the mutinous Southern states were free—really only a war-time measure under his authority as Commander in Chief—and another three years before the [8] Thirteenth Amendment legally abolished it. And another three years (1868) before the Dred Scott issues of citizenship in both the nation and the state were settled by the [9] Fourteenth Amendment.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles