Gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson opening Inaugural festivities

[kwassa]

and Obama will be there.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/12/gene-robinson-gay-bishop_n_157076.html

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, a vocal gay rights leader, will open President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration with a prayer on Sunday's kick-off event at the Lincoln Memorial.

"I am writing to tell you that President-Elect Obama and the Inaugural Committee have invited me to give the invocation at the opening event of the Inaugural Week activities, We are One, to be held at the Lincoln Memorial," Robinson wrote in an email to friends.

The announcement comes after weeks of outcry from the gay community over Obama's choice of evangelical, anti-gay pastor Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation.

"It's important for any minority to see themselves represented in some way," Robinson said in an interview with the Concord Monitor. "Whether it be a racial minority, an ethnic minority or, in our case, a sexual minority. Just seeing someone like you up front matters."

Robinson is the first openly gay diocesan bishop in the Anglican Communion. "God never gets it wrong. The church often takes a long time to get it right. It is a human institution, but one capable of self-correction," Robinson told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "I believe in my heart that the church got it wrong about homosexuality. There is great excitement in my heart to be living in a time when the church is starting to get it right."

Robinson said he would love to sit down with Rick Warren but believed that the California pastor has "perpetrated lies about the gay, lesbian and bisexual community."

[annabanana]

1. Well now... How's that?

Can we all sit and listen to the RW moan & groan about how this gives teh gay "legitimacy"?.. Will they all demand that what'shisface refuse to pray on the 20th?

[trotsky]

2. Is this supposed to "make up" for Warren?

I don't think you can balance a bigot with a non-bigot.

[moggie]

3. Even more prayer?

Just how much praying does a secular government need? You've got Warren doing the invocation, Joseph Lowery giving the benediction, Sharon Watkins leading the national prayer service, and now Gene Robinson starting the whole thing, just in case that wasn't enough God. However decent Robinson may be, this is ridiculous.

[kwassa]

4. I think you need to pray on this subject.

:evilgrin:

[skepticscott]

5. Ever since Warren was announced

I've been wishing that Obama had put Robinson up on the podium on Inauguration day, right along with him. That would have been a true test of how accepting Warren was of homosexuals and how willing he was to do something that might annoy his flock of sheep to prove it, much more than the gratuitous glad-handing of a few celebrities. Obama copped out a little, unfortunately, but it's still a good thing.