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The New York Times
U.S.
Gay Bishop Plans His
Civil Union Rite
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN,
nytimes.com Published April 25, 2009
From the Web, April
29, 2008
Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay
Episcopal prelate whose consecration led conservatives to split from the church,
said in an interview on Thursday that he and his partner of 20 years were
planning a civil union ceremony to be held in his home church in the diocese of
New Hampshire in June.
Bishop Robinson said that by scheduling the ceremony for June, he did not intend
to further inflame conservatives just before the Anglican Communion gathers in
August in Cambridge, England, for the Lambeth Conference, which happens only
once every 10 years.
He planned his civil union for June, he said, because he wanted to provide some
legal protection to his partner and his children before he left for England for
the conference. Bishop Robinson has received death threats, and he wore a
bulletproof vest under his vestments at his consecration in 2003.
“We could have, I suppose, just gone to the town clerk and had that signed,” he
said, “but, you know, I’m a religious person, and every major event in my life
has been marked with some kind of liturgy and giving thanks to God.”
Bishop Robinson will not be attending the Lambeth Conference’s official sessions
with his more than 800 fellow bishops. He was excluded from participating
by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who, as leader of the Church of
England, is responsible for issuing the invitations.
The archbishop came under pressure from conservative bishops who warned that
they would boycott the conference if Bishop Robinson attended. And recent
efforts by three American bishops to negotiate a compromise that would have
allowed him to attend in a “diminished capacity” failed.
Bishop Robinson initially rejected, but has now accepted, the idea that he will
spend the conference days in the Marketplace, an adjunct bazaar where church
advocacy groups and purveyors of Christian merchandise promote their causes and
wares. He said he would position himself in the Marketplace and at several
evening events to make his case about how gay relationships are compatible with
Christianity.
“My hope,” he said, “is that even some of the more negative bishops will be
encouraged by the American participants to come with them and to see that I
don’t have horns, or I don’t wear a dress or I don’t fit any of the stereotypes
that are often held by people who don’t really know gay people, and in fact will
see how normal I am, and to hear about the incredibly normal life I have as a
bishop in my diocese.”
In the last five years, conservatives in the Anglican Communion have threatened
schism ever since the American church’s General Convention, its highest
governing body, consented to the election of Bishop Robinson, and refused to
issue a blanket prohibition of same-sex blessings.
It is up to the bishop of each diocese to decide whether to permit such
blessings. Bishop Robinson, after consulting with a council in his
diocese, has approved his own ceremony.
Bishop Robinson said he was surprised at another controversy that arose last
year when he endorsed Senator Barack Obama before the New Hampshire primary.
Some voters in the state said religious leaders should stay out of politics.
Bishop Robinson said he had talked three times with Mr. Obama, of Illinois, and
advised him on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.
Bishop Robinson spoke in an interview at The New York Times, and is promoting
his new book, “In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God”
(Seabury Books). The publicity tour will take him to a few unexpected
places: a conference of black church leaders and the Hay Festival, a
literary gathering in England.
In England, the Anglican church has plenty of gay clergymen, he said, but the
difference with the church in the United States is that they are in the closet.
“I myself have probably met 300 partnered gay clergy there,” Bishop Robinson
said. “I have met bishops who will go and have a lovely dinner with a
priest and his gay partner, and then warn the priest that if the dinner becomes
public, the bishop will be your worst enemy.”
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