Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson spoke to gay Mormons at a conference last weekend in Washington. Though the two faiths are radically different, Robinson said God’s love for gays is universal. (Blade photo by Elizabeth Perry)
During a break at last weekend’s Affirmation conference, Bishop Gene Robinson spoke to the Blade’s Elizabeth Perry about the state of the Episcopal Church, what gay Christians should expect from their leaders and when it’s right to break religious ties. Robinson’s comments have been edited for clarity and length.
Washington Blade: What is your reaction to the House of Bishops statement released last week?
Bishop Gene Robinson: My take on what happened is “not much” and that’s what a number of us were working for. The bishops in our church don’t speak for the whole church. Our church only speaks when bishops and clergy and laity are gathered. Unlike many other churches, the bishops do not speak for the whole church. So it was not within our authority to do something different than what the General Convention did last summer. It was largely a restatement of where we already were. My thought is that sometimes progress is holding the ground you’ve already gained when moving forward is either untimely or politically not possible. I think that’s what we did.
Blade: What do you say to gays and lesbians who are disappointed?
Robinson: I, along with lots of gay and lesbian people, am disappointed that we didn’t move forward. But this is going to take a long time. We’re changing something that has been around since the beginning of time and it is not going to change overnight. I try to remind myself that it took me 39 years to come to accept myself as a gay man and to know that God loved me just the way I am. Then I told my parents and I expected them to do the 39 years’ work I had done in one day. The very next day I expected them to be where I was. Well, you know, it takes time to make the kinds of changes that we are making. It’s going to take awhile. What I believe is that we need to be in this for the long haul, and that we need not be discouraged nor should we be discouraged when we don’t get all that we want, as fast as we want. We should recommit ourselves to working hard to achieve the kind of church that I think God wants.
Blade: How are you able to cope with being the only openly gay ordained bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion?
Robinson: Several ways. One is I’m never alone because God is astoundingly close. I don’t know that I have ever felt God’s palpable presence more than in these past four years. Add to that an amazing level of support from LGBT people within the church and beyond it. And finally, remarkable support from our straight allies in the House of Bishops, among clergy and laity. LGBT people are not the only ones who have a vision for full inclusion. Lots of church people get it and are working toward it, and they are our allies. I’m committed that when it doesn’t move as fast as we would like for it too, that we not burn the bridges with our allies that someday soon we are going to want to cross. We thank them for their support and push them for further action.
Blade: In terms of your personal life, how have things been in the last four years?
Robinson: This is my partner’s [Mark Andrew] worst nightmare in the sense that he is a very private person. Being in the limelight is the last thing he would have wanted. From the very beginning he has not only been willing but totally encouraging in this and has played a remarkable role publicly and privately in our relationship. My life is now so busy he is picking up a lot of the slack at home, and has really enjoyed the role of being a bishop’s spouse. It’s nothing I would ever have asked of him or expected him to enjoy, but he’s really found a new ministry there. He is beloved in the community of bishops’ spouses. They just adore him, which is no surprise to me.
Blade: What do you say to gay Christians who are struggling under the weight of their own church’s oppression? Is it better to stay and fight or leave and join a gay-friendly church?
Robinson: That’s a very personal choice. I would recommend that everyone stay and work hard in the denomination and religious communities they find to be home. But I also understand that in some places, in some congregations and environments it has become so toxic to one’s spiritual life that it may not be possible. To find spiritual solace, comfort and inspiration someplace else is also a reasonable choice. In the end, I don’t think God wants any one of us to sacrifice our spiritual life on this or any other altar. It’s up to each person to assess where they are in their own relationship with God and to discern whether that relationship is so strong that you can stay in a somewhat hostile environment to work for change. And if you can’t, then go someplace that does feed you.
Religious beliefs may differ from one denomination to another, but the experience of gays in their places of worship is similar across the board, according to the only openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, who delivered the keynote address at a gay Mormon conference Saturday.
“We are both connected to institutions that we both love and are so frustrated with,” said Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. “[They are] institutions that have oppressed us, and yet somewhere in the middle of them we know lies the truth of God.”
Robinson spoke at the Affirmation Conference, a gathering of gay outcasts from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill. Robinson is on a three-month sabbatical from his post as bishop and will leave in early November to meet with Anglican primates in Asia’s Pacific Rim.
His audience was made up of about 160 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Mormons and ex-Mormons from across the United States, Canada and Europe. Other speakers at the conference included authors Carol Lynn Pearson, Jonathan Rauch, Buck Jeppson and representatives from Human Rights Campaign, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and Equality Maryland. Local speakers included Sgt. Brett Parson, a gay officer with D.C. Metro Police, and Lisa Polyak and Gita Deane, a lesbian couple who lost a lawsuit against Maryland last month seeking marriage rights.
Affirmation formed in Salt Lake City in 1977 and provides support for gays who are having difficulty reconciling their sexual orientation and their faith. It also educates church members and leaders and provides a forum for the discussion of gay issues. The Washington chapter has been around since 1982, with approximately 25 active members.
The group’s membership of about 1,200 runs the gamut from those who are still active in the church to those who have been excommunicated or choose not to have anything to do with it.
In his speech, Robinson, who’s been a controversial figure since his consecration, said he hoped his experience dealing with the Anglican Communion would be helpful to Mormons, whose church leaders teach that acting on homosexual desires is always wrong. Robinson urged his audience to remind themselves that the church is wrong if it tells them they are going to hell because they are gay.
“You are not going to hell,” he said. “Your are going back to the God that created you and has loved you from the moment you were conceived. God loves the fact that you are gay, loves your relationships.”
He said the mission the Affirmation members are on is as real as any two-year Mormon mission they may have participated in, only much bigger.
“Your mission is for the whole world,” he said. “To witness to a God who has loved you and accepted you and helped you to be who you are.”
He shared his own coming out story and his efforts to reconcile his faith life with his sexual orientation. He said it all came to a head in the early 1970s, when he was enrolled in the General Theological Seminary in New York. He experienced a longing to be married and have children even though he knew he was gay.
“I got into therapy for two years, twice a week to change myself,” he said. “You can see how effective that was. By the end of those two years I felt ready to have a relationship with a woman.”
He met his future wife while he was chaplain at the University of Vermont. He told her that most of his “important relationships” had been with men, but he went to therapy and was ready for a relationship with a woman. A month before the wedding he confided in her that he was afraid his attraction for men would resurface, and they agreed to deal with it together if it did.
Thirteen years and two children later the couple had a communion service officiated by a priest, where they returned rings, asked for each other’s forgiveness and pledged to work together to raise their children. He said his ex-wife remains a close friend and was one of the presenters at his consecration in 2003.
He met his partner, Mark Andrew, on a beach in St. Croix and said they will solemnize their civil union after 20 years together on Jan. 1, 2008, in New Hampshire.
Robinson said he knew his election in June 2003 would be controversial, but thought it would blow over and he could get on with just being a bishop. During the General Convention that July, he said two-thirds of the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies consented to his consecration.
The death threats started after he was elected and included a postcard of an English cathedral on the front and obscenities on the back. He also received a message containing a picture of him and his partner with text composed of letters cut from headlines that read, “I have a bullet for each one of your heads when you least expect it.” At his consecration ceremony in November 2003, he and Andrew were wearing bulletproof vests.
“The deacon standing next to me was fully armed and part of the security force,” he said. “He [was instructed to] fall on top of me, and if I was still alive, get me out of the building.”
Robinson said serving as a bishop has been an honor. Despite the controversy that surrounded his ordination and the uproar from conservative American Episcopalians and Nigerian Anglican primates, he said he spends most of his days working as a bishop.
“In New Hampshire this is just not an issue,” he said. “I say around our church that if you want to find out what the church is going to be like after we stop obsessing about sex, come to New Hampshire. We are just getting on with the Gospel.”
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