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Loading ...Gay bishop to kick off Inauguration events
01.12.2009 9:48am EST
(Washington) Gene Robinson, the Episcopal church’s first gay bishop, will deliver the invocation at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, January 18 – the formal kickoff leading up to the inauguration of President-elect Obama.
Thousands of people are expected to attend the service, including the President-elect.“It will be an enormous honor to offer prayers for the country and the new president, standing on the holy ground where the ‘I have a dream speech’ was delivered by Dr. King, surrounded by the inspiring and reconciling words of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address,” Robinson wrote in a weekend e-mail to supporters.
“I am humbled and overjoyed at this invitation, and it will be my great honor to be there representing the Episcopal Church, the people of New Hampshire, and all of us in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community,” he said in the e-mail.
The announcement by the inaugural committee was one of two involving liberal religious leaders tapped by the committee. The Rev. Sharon Watkins, leader of the small Protestant denomination The Disciples of Christ, has been chosen to deliver the sermon at the National Prayer Service.
The election of Robinson as bishop in 2003 led to deep divisions within the worldwide Anglican Church and resulted in a number of parishes leaving the Episcopal umbrella while remaining Anglican.
Robinson has been a strong supporter of Obama and was vocal about his anger over the naming of Rev Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration on January 20 at the Capitol.
Warren, the pastor and founder of Saddleback Church in Southern California, ignited the ire of many liberals when he publicly supported California’s Proposition 8, which amended the state Constitution to ban gay marriage.
“The president-elect has respect for the Rt. Rev. Robinson, who offered his advice and counsel over the past couple of years,” an inaugural official told The Politico Web site. “It also has the benefit of further reinforcing our commitment to an open and inclusive inaugural.”
The official also said that the selections of Robinson and Watkins were made before the furor over Warren erupted.
Watkins is the first woman leader of The Disciples of Christ and the first woman to give the sermon at the traditional event, to be held Jan. 21 at the National Cathedral.
The service will include prayers, readings and hymns delivered by religious leaders of a variety of faiths.
The Disciples of Christ has about 850,000 members in the United States and Canada.
It says its work is “influenced by its founding ideals of our unity in Christ with openness and diversity in practice and belief.”
Most of the denomination’s churches are LGBT welcoming, although some, particularly in the South, are not. As congregationalists, each church is free to set its own policies.
Because of the divisions over sexuality, the Disciples of Christ has not taken a position on same-sex marriage. Watkins in an interview with The New York Times said she also has not made up her mind on the issue.
President-elect Obama has said he is not in favor of gay marriage but supports civil unions for same-sex couples and the repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
In 1997 at its annual convention, the Disciples of Christ urged the enactment of “legislation on local, state and national levels which will end the denial of civil rights and the violation of civil liberties for reasons of sexual orientation.”
The resolution specifically recognized that “the church, among other elements of society, has contributed to the persecution and suffering of homosexuals, and it is its culpability in this regard which provides one reason for seeking a more enlightened understanding.”
What HBO Did Not Want You To Hear:
- Bishop Gene Robinson’s Invocation
“Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…
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.
Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.
And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
Bishop Robinsons prayer was just a few moments before HBO started coverage. They chose to ignore it.
Write letters to HBO. Let them know we do not appreciate their homophobia and discrimination.
I find HBO’s coverage of Bishop Robinson or lack of thereof to be a very ominous sign of the treatment we’re about to receive in the upcoming years.
HBO ignored Bishop Robinson and did they also ignore mention of a gay chorus? Let ‘em know we’re ticked.
Oh, it gets even worse.
Apparently the people on the mall could not even hear Bishop Robinson as there were “technical difficulties” with the sound. Thank Heavens the difficulties were worked out by the time the actual concert started!
Also, the Obama family and the Biden family did not arrive until well after the Invocation and into the concert.