Petition to replace anti-gay pastor for benediction at President Obama's 2nd Inaugural

President Obama and his inauguration committee are going to have some added stress over the next few days: a growing movement, including a We the People petition on the White House's official page, to replace Louie Giglio as the inauguration preacher.

Giglio, much like the 2008 inauguration preacher, Rick Warren, has a history of preaching hate against homophobia. "We must reach out and we must aggressively move toward the homosexual community," he said in a 1990s era speech called "In Search of a Standard – Christian Response to Homosexuality."

An except from Giglio's mid-1990s "Christian training speech" titled In Search of a Standard – Christian Response to Homosexuality:

(9:20) [God] says very clearly in [Leviticus], verse 22, after he talks about a lot of different kinds of relationships, he says in verse 22: “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination.” Now if you would look forward into the New Testament context, to the passage that most of us know most commonly with this issue, into chapter one of the book of Romans, let’s read a few verses together beginning in verse 18. If you’re taking notes tonight, you might make this the note of Leviticus 20:13 and the book of Jude, we won’t look at those passages but there is some support and encouragement there to this topic.

(17:37) Men, women, I can’t say anything other to you tonight than this, that if you look at the counsel of the word of God, Old Testament, New Testament, you come quickly to the conclusion that homosexuality is not an alternate lifestyle… homosexuality is not just a sexual preference homosexuality is not gay, but homosexuality is sin. It is sin in the eyes of God, and it is sin according to the word of God. You come to only one conclusion: homosexuality is less than God’s best for his creation. It is less than God’s best for us and everything in our lives that is less than God’s best for us and his plan for us and his design for us, is sin. That’s God’s voice. If you want to hear God’s voice, that is his voice to this issue of homosexuality. It is not ambiguous and unclear. It is very clear.

Audio of the full speech is here.

Giglio has also advocated for the "ex-gay" movement, telling his audiences that "the only way out of a homosexual lifestyle, the only way out of a relationship that has been engrained over years of time, is through the healing power of Jesus."

The We The People petition asks the president to replace Giglio with an LGBT friendly clergy person.

Meanwhile, Chris Johnson at the Washington Blade asked press secretary Jay Carney about Giglio yesterday, but Carney wouldn't comment.

"I haven’t seen that report," Carney said of the ThinkProgress post that revealed Giglio's past comments. "I would refer you to the inaugural committee. I haven’t seen the report."