But Mr. Warren, you aren't telling the truth

In the transcript of Rick Warren's comments about the controversy (talked about in my last post), he said he never equated gay marriage with pedophilia or incest:

I have been accused of equating gay partnerships with incest and pedophilia. Now of course as members of Saddleback Church you know I believe no such thing, I never have. You've never once heard me in 30 years heard me talk that way about that.

Well then just what is this statement taken from an interview with Beliefnet.com:

Rick Warren: But the issue to me is, I’m not opposed to that as much as I’m opposed to the redefinition of a 5,000-year definition of marriage. I’m opposed to having a brother and sister be together and call that marriage. I’m opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage. I’m opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

Steven Waldman: Do you think, though, that they are equivalent to having gays getting married?

Rick Warren: Oh I do . …

You can see the video of the interview here and judge for yourself.

In his defense, Warren does try to clarify what he meant in this interview:

. . . in that interview I named several other relationships, in fact I've done it several times, I've named other relationships such as living together, uh or a man with multiple wives or brother sister relationship or adults with children or common law partnerships or all kinds of other relationships. I don't think any of them should be called marriage. Now I was not saying that those relationships were the same thing because I happen to not believe that and I've never taught it. I was just pointing out that I believe the definition of marriage should only be included one definition, a man and a woman for life.

You can take it for what you want, but to me, Warren needs to man up and own his comments. The "explanations" he gives for equating same sex marriage to pedophilia and incest are weak at best.

And it is more proof that Warren's attack on lgbts for calling him out on his dishonesty is unfounded.

In the transcript, Warren also blames the media and bloggers for "creating this controversy."

I guess his lying has nothing to do with it, huh?

Someone needs to tell Warren that the more he talks, the worse he looks.

UPDATE - Apparently Steve Waldman, the Beliefnet writer who interviewed Warren, doesn't agree with the explanations either, but he does add a caveat in another attempt to clarify Warren's comments. I happen to not agree but still it is worth mentioning:

In his December 22 video Warren had an opportunity to do something quite straightforward and healing: clarify, take resonsibility and, ideally, apologize. He did clarify but did not, in my view, take responsibility. He could have simply said, "it came out in a way I didn't mean and I apologize for those who I hurt because of that." It wouldn't have required him to back off his position on gay marriage one iota. Instead, he blamed the media and misremembered or mischaracterized what he'd said.

On the other hand, what's most important is that he did make it clear that he doesn't believe gay relationships are the moral equivalent of incest etc. That idea should now be put to rest.

Hat tip to Teach The Facts for the transcript and to Box Turtle Bulletin for the part about Waldman.