Gene Robinson

Vicky Gene Robinson (born May 29, 1947) is a retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. Robinson was elected bishop coadjutor in 2003 and succeeded as bishop diocesan in March 2004. Before becoming bishop, he served as Canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese of New Hampshire.

Robinson is widely known for being the first openly gay priest to be consecrated a bishop in a major Christian denomination believing in the historic episcopate, a matter of significant controversy. After his election, many theologically traditional Episcopalians in the United States abandoned the Episcopal Church, formed the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and aligned themselves with bishops outside the Episcopal Church in the United States, a process called the Anglican realignment. His story has appeared in print and film.

In 2010, Robinson announced his intention to retire in 2013 at 65. His successor is A. Robert Hirschfeld.

Early life

Robinson's parents were poor tenant farmers in Lexington, Kentucky, who worked in the tobacco fields as sharecroppers. The family used an outhouse, drew water from a cistern, and did laundry in a cast-iron tub over an open flame. Their house did not have running water until Robinson was ten years old. Robinson's parents were young (his mother Imogene was twenty) and they were hoping for a girl. For a long time, Robinson's parents believed the boy would die soon. Much later in life, Robinson's father would tell him he couldn't take any joy in the boy's development because he always thought each step was going to be the last thing. and he sold his share in the business to Boo. They remained friends. and had it blessed by Bishop Douglas E. Theuner, an event which they considered to be the formal recognition of their life together. Earlier, Robinson had said, "I always wanted to be a June bride." Robinson and Andrew divorced in 2014.

Robinson became Canon to the Ordinary in 1988, the executive assistant to the then bishop of New Hampshire, Douglas Theuner. Robinson remained in this job for the next fifteen years until he was elected bishop.

Election as bishop

Robinson was elected bishop by the New Hampshire diocese on June 7, 2003, at St. Paul's Church in Concord. Thirty-nine clergy votes and 83 lay votes were the threshold necessary to elect a bishop in the Diocese of New Hampshire at that time. The clergy cast 58 votes for Robinson, and the laity voted 96 for Robinson on the second ballot. When no such link was found on the Diocese of New Hampshire web page profiling the bishop-elect, Virtue stated that the link was on the website of an organization Robinson supported. Robinson was already known to be associated with Outright, a secular organization for the support of young LGBT people. Fred Barnes, a Fox News commentator, repeated the allegations on the website of The Weekly Standard. On the day the allegations arose, the website issued a press release stating that it had removed the offending link, that it had been unaware of the pornographic links on allthingsbi.com, and that Robinson had no involvement with that particular chapter of Outright.

The male parishioner of Manchester, Vermont (in a diocese neighboring Robinson's) who had alleged the "touching" was then reported to have said, during the investigating committee's telephone call with him, that the acts in question were two separate occasions of what felt to him like intentionally seductive arm-squeezing and back-stroking, albeit in a public setting. The man acknowledged that while others might have regarded the two incidents as "natural", the incidents were disturbing to him nonetheless. Robinson was showing his bullet-proof vest to Harris herself. Robinson's parents, sister, daughter and their families and his ex-wife Boo were all at the consecration. Robinson was consecrated on November 2, 2003, in the presence of Frank Griswold, Presiding Bishop, and six co-consecrating bishops: 48 bishops in all. Desmond Tutu, Archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, stated that he did not see what "all the fuss" was about, saying the election would not roil the Church of the Province of Southern Africa. Other senior bishops of the church, like Peter Akinola, Archbishop of the Church of Nigeria and head of the Global South, have made Robinson a figurehead in their dispute with the Episcopal Church. Some disaffected Episcopalian congregations disaffiliated from the Episcopal Church and formed the Convocation of Anglicans in North America with the support of the Nigerian church, later reorganized as the Anglican Church in North America.

Episcopate

thumb|right|Bishop Robinson in 2006, during the 75th General Convention of the [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal Church]]

Reports from Britain describe how Robinson has received death threats, had to wear bulletproof vests, and needed protection since his election and consecration.

In February 2006, Robinson was treated at an inpatient rehabilitation facility to deal with his "increasing dependence on alcohol". He returned to work in March 2006.

Robinson was featured prominently in a documentary film entitled For the Bible Tells Me So, which screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

He has opposed the Roman Catholic ban on homosexual seminarians, stating: "I find it so vile that they think they are going to end the child abuse scandal by throwing out homosexuals from seminaries."

Due to the controversy surrounding his consecration, Bishop Robinson was not invited to the 2008 Lambeth Conferences by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. A group of conservative bishops (including Akinola and Duncan) who opposed Robinson's consecration gathered in Jerusalem one month prior to Lambeth 2008, at the Global Anglican Future Conference, an event which is perceived by some as schismatic.

Robinson did however visit the United Kingdom privately in July 2008, during which he participated in a film screening and question and answer session with Sir Ian McKellen at the Royal Festival Hall, and was invited to preach at St Mary's Putney, events which attracted much media attention. The sermon was interrupted by a heckler who was then escorted out of the service. Robinson asked the rest of the congregation, most of whom greeted the interruption with slow-clapping, to "pray for that man", before completing his sermon. The Primate of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan, Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, on July 22 at a public press conference during the 2008 Lambeth Conference called for Robinson to resign, and for all those who had participated in his consecration to confess their sin to the conference.

In 2009 Robinson was selected to deliver the invocation at the kickoff event of President Barack Obama's inaugural weekend. Despite his extended involvement with Obama during the campaign, his selection was widely discussed as an effort to counterbalance the role of the choice of evangelical pastor Rick Warren. Media outlets noted that Warren had compared the legitimization of same-sex marriage to the legalization of "incest, polygamy or 'an older guy marrying a child'". Warren also supported California Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state. However, Warren took a conciliatory tone towards Obama: "I applaud his desire to be the president of every citizen." The kickoff event was held at the Lincoln Memorial two days before Obama's swearing-in. It asked "the God of our many understandings" for seven blessings, and to help Obama, as president, in seven ways. Neither HBO's exclusive live broadcast, nor the Presidential Inauguration Committee's blog of the event included the invocation, but the prepared text was posted in full on the website of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, and video shot informally by attendees was posted on YouTube. National Public Radio, which relied on the HBO feed that omitted it, broadcast a recording the following day with an interview of Robinson about its limited exposure; in that venue, Robinson described it as conforming to the four-fold Franciscan prayer model. According to the Washington Blade, it was the Presidential Inaugural Committee that made the decision for the prayer to be a part of the pre-show and not the show, itself, with a spokesman from that committee maintaining the prayer was dropped through an unspecified "error." Some gay activists maintain that this was a slight on the part of the Obama administration.

In April 2009, Robinson made the Out magazine Third Annual Power 50 list of the most influential gay men and women in the US, landing at number 7. In August 2009, Gene Robinson was a key speaker at the 2009 Greenbelt Festival, held at Cheltenham Racecourse, Gloucestershire, England. Here he delivered three talks, each garnering an attendance in the thousands, based not only on his views of Christianity and homosexuality, but also on human sexuality in general and the rights of LGBT members of society. The three talks were entitled "Homosexuality: What the Bible says & why it matters", "Keeping your cool in the eye of the storm" and "Sexuality and spirituality: keeping them together". As well as these three talks, Gene Robinson made a big impact on some gay and lesbian festival-goers by leading them collectively in prayer on the second night of the festival as part of a small group.

In 2009 he was given the Stephen F. Kolzak Media Award.

In 2012, Macky Alston premiered a documentary about Robinson, Love Free or Die: How the Bishop of New Hampshire is Changing the World, it was screened at Sundance Film Festival.

Since retirement

After resigning as bishop of New Hampshire in 2013, Robinson moved to Washington, D.C. to join the Center for American Progress as a senior fellow and serve as bishop-in-residence at St. Thomas' Parish. In 2014, Robinson and his husband, Mark Andrew, divorced.

From 2017 to 2021, Robinson served as Vice President and Senior Pastor of the Chautauqua Institution, a center for arts, education, recreation and religion in upstate New York.

Notes

References

External links

Biography of Bishop Robinson at the Diocese of New Hampshire website
Messages from Bishop Robinson
CNN June 8, 2003 "Episcopalians Approve Gay Bishop, and Conflict"
CNN November 2, 2003 "Gay bishop-elect: 'This is what God wants for me'"
The Guardian 10/21/03 "Profile: Gene Robinson"
Online radio interview with Gene Robinson and Donald Armstrong, March 2007
video recorded January 18, 2009.
Interview of Gene Robinson by Terry Gross of NPR Station WHYY's Fresh Air, January 2013
Op-ed piece in USA Today by Gene Robinson regarding the Hobby Lobby case