(Washington) LGBT activists demonstrated Monday at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, protesting the appearance of Pastor Rick Warren at Martin Luther King Day observances.

Warren, the pastor and founder of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., publicly supported California’s Proposition 8, which amended the state Constitution to ban gay marriage.

Dr. King never publicly spoke about gay rights, but his 1963 March on Washington was organized by Bayard Rustin, an openly gay black man. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, often appeared at LGBT rights rallies before her death in 2006.

In 2003, she invited the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to take part in observances of the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.

It was the first time that an LGBT rights group had been invited to a major event of the African American community and drew the ire of some of the other speakers.

King said her husband supported the quest for equality by gays and reminded her critics that the 1963 March on Washington was organized by Rustin.

In March 2004, she told a university audience that same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue and denounced a proposed amendment to the Constitution ban it.

“Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union,” she said in a speech at The Richard Stockton College in Pomona, New Jersey.

The protest against the appearance by Warren at Ebenezer Baptist Church was the second day of protests over the involvement of Warren in the inauguration.

On Sunday about 100 people, many waving rainbow flags, demonstrated in California front of Saddleback Church.

Obama’s invitation to Warren to say the invocation at Tuesday’s inauguration led to criticism by many gays who had supported the President-elect’s campaign.

That anger led the inaugural committee to invite Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, to appear at Sunday’s official inaugural kickoff at the Lincoln Memorial.

Robinson asked the crowd to pray for “understanding that our president is a human being and not a messiah.”

“Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS,” he said in his invocation.

“Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.”

But the appearance before an estimated 400,000 was not covered by HBO, which had bought the television rights to the massive concert.

Several blocks away at 17th and Constitution, a small group of anti-gay protesters demonstrated but followers of Rev. Fred Phelps who had said they intended to protest were visibly absent. Phelps is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas which is largely made up of family members and routinely pickets LGBT-positive events.

In his address to the throng that spread from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument Obama declared that “Anything is possible in America.”

“Despite the enormity of the task that lies ahead – I stand here today as hopeful as ever that the United States of America will endure – that the dream of our founders will live on in our time,” the President-elect said.

Among the stellar lineup of stars was Washington’s Gay Men’s Chorus.

Obama arrived in Washington on Saturday, ending a majestic train ride across the frigid mid-Atlantic seaboard that recreated the triumphant journey of President-elect Abraham Lincoln.

Celebratory crowds braved subfreezing weather to salute Obama along his 137-mile journey to the nation’s capital from Philadelphia.

On board the “Obama Express” were several dozen “everyday Americans” who Obama had met on the campaign trail.

Among them were Lisa Hazirjian and her Michelle Kaiser of Cleveland.

Hazirjian, a Case Western Reserve University history professor, recruited volunteers from the gay community in Ohio and Pennsylvania. She worked full-time for the Obama campaign in Cleveland over the summer and fall.

Hazirjian became involved in LGBT civil rights after she was denied a job at another university when she sought domestic partnership benefits for Kaiser.

Both women, along with Robinson and other gay rights leaders also will attend the inauguration.