Response to the question: "What about partnership benefits in terms of insurance or hospital visitation?", as quoted in "Rick Warren’s Controversial Comments on Gay Marriage" by Steven Waldman at Beliefnet (17 December 2008) http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/12/rick-warrens-controversial-com.html

“The smile of God is the goal of your life. Since pleasing God is the first purpose of your life, your most important task is to discover how to do that. The Bible says, "Figure out what will please Christ, then do it." Fortunately, the Bible gives us a clear example of a life that gives pleasure to God. The man's name was Noah.”

Rick Warren

What Makes God Smile?
The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (2002)

“Be willing to let people leave the church. And I told you earlier the fact that people are gonna leave the church no matter what you do. But when you define the vision, you're choosing who leaves. You say, "But Rick, yes, they're the pillars of the church." Now, you know what pillars are. Pillars are people who hold things up … And in your church, you may have to have some blessed subtractions before you have any real additions.”

Rick Warren

Source: "Building a Purpose Driven Church" seminar, Saddleback Church (January 1998), quoted in "The Church Growth Movement: An Analysis of Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven" Church", in Foundation Magazine (March-April 1998)

“I am not an anti-gay or anti-marriage activist. Never have been, never will be. The whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement. Never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop 8 was going — the week before the vote, somebody in my church said, "Pastor Rick, what do you think about this?" And I sent a note to my own members that said, I actually believe that marriage is really, should be defined. If that definition should be saved between a man and a woman and then all of a suddenly out of it they made me, you know something that I really wasn't.”

Rick Warren