He was a man who preached peace and love,
and he found himself caught up
in a firestorm of hate.
Ted Koppel is talking with Gene Robinson
2 decades after his elevation as the first openly gay
Bishop in the Episcopal Church,
November 2003. As the Episcopal Church consecrated Gene Robinson,
the 9th Bishop of New Hampshire,
he wore the customary vestments.
He was also wearing a bulletproof vest.
Is that your will that we ordained Gene A Bishop?
What made the occasion controversial,
indeed historic, was the church's acceptance of Gene Robinson as
the first openly gay Bishop in all of Christendom.
There have been a lot of us.
Let's just be clear. Robinson is quick to point out
that there have always been gay bishops in the Episcopal
Church.
I'm just the first openly gay one.
Our service continues with the Great Thanksgiving on page,
almost certainly the first Episcopal Bishop with purple nail Polish.
This was, of course, a special occasion,
a celebration late last fall commemorating his consecration as Bishop
20 years ago.
The congregation of Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in Washington,
DC
is Bishop Robinson's parish these days
these are very much his people,
and here he clearly feels more free,
perhaps to be himself, Purple fingernails and all.
It pleases me to no end.
It's fanciful. I love purple.
As you see, bishops wear a lot of purple.
And I thought, you know what?
I'm 76 years old. I can get my nails painted.
On a more serious note,
Bishop Robinson reflected back on the climate in which he
had been labeled the most dangerous man in the Anglican
Church.
We forget what a big deal it was
and how hard it was and how many people were
opposed
and and the pain it caused.
A lot of people it had provoked immediate threats.
One of the earliest times was the day I was
elected.
I got my first death threat before I got home
that day and that was to continue for
2 1/2 years. What was the nature of that threat?
I got a postcard and it began.
You fornicating Lecherous pig. At the time,
Robinson was living with his partner Mark Andrew,
who later became his spouse.
Robinson had previously been in a conventional marriage until he
and his wife,
Isabella Martin, decided to divorce.
We were married for almost 14 years and have two
wonderful daughters and two granddaughters.
I get to see her and chat with her all
the time.
How about the daughters? When did they learn the dad
was different?
So they were four and eight
and I sat with the 8 year old.
I said,
you know what a lesbian is,
right? So the 8 year old says oh,
oh, Oh yeah, very casual.
Oh Oh yeah. Most men like women and most women
like men,
but some men like men and some women like women.
That that's that's an A+ right there.
So I said, I've learned that I'm one of those
men who like men,
and your mom and I
have together decided that she deserves
a chance to find someone who can love her in
that special way,
and I deserve the opportunity to find someone to love
in my way.
It's all history now, almost 37 years since the divorce
and since he came out publicly in his church,
20 years since he became a Bishop,
nine years since he and Mark divorced.
And through it all, Bishop Robinson has become something of
an institution.
The Smithsonian wants to display his vestments.
He's often invited to speak these days here at
Washington's National Cathedral. What a
dreadful life your predecessors must have lived.
The gay bishops who will not identify it
as such. I can tell you from my own experience,
and it's one of the things that led to my
coming out,
is it's an awful thing to stand in a pulpit
and encourage people to live authentic lives when you know
you're not being authentic.
It's why I felt God called me out of the
closet.
Do you ever feel you know
there's more to me than my sexuality?
I didn't want to be the the gay Bishop.
I wanted to be a good Bishop,
but I realized I wasn't in control of that the
media.
What's going to make me the gay Bishop whether I
liked it or not?
So what I decided was if I was going to
be the gay Bishop,
then I'd be the best damn gay Bishop that I
could ever be.
We must not proceed with this terrible and unbiblical mistake.
Which controversial? Oh yes, it will break God's heart.
Hundreds of parishes left the Episcopal Church and it would
be nearly seven years after
Robinson's election as Bishop before Mary Glasspool,
a lesbian, was elected suffragan or assisting Bishop of Los
Angeles.
Now, though, there are 5 openly gay bishops,
including Bishop Thomas Brown of Maine and Bishop Jeff Mellow
of Connecticut.
Bishop Robinson, who is retired,
refers to them as his legacy.
As you look at the Church today,
how does it perceive the notion of a gay Bishop?
I remember two different senior clergy assuring me that the
fact that I was gay was not a concern.
And of course it was a concern.
But compared to what I think it might have been
like for Mary and for Bishop Robinson,
it really wasn't a concern that people had moved,
that we got clear that the church was not going
to fall down.
The people in Maine, I show up every Sunday at
a different church.
The first thing they say is where is Tom,
because they really want my spouse there.
Bishops Glasspool and Mellow are also married.
I was never told if you're gay it's going to
be OK.
But I heard over and over and over again,
God loves you. My relationship with God is what got
me through it all,
and that's my greatest concern right now.
When you say are we tired of
talking about our sexuality, I'm tired of it until I
remember that there are still kids out there whose lives
are being saved because they're seeing people who are living
their lives openly 50 years from now.
What are they going to say about Bishop Romans?
That he was a prophet?
That he was courageous, And I think it costs a
lot.
Just expand on that a little.
What do you mean? There was a period in college
where
I thought maybe God hated me
because I was feeling erotically attracted to women.
Finally,
kind of in the middle of the night,
God said to me, no,
you know, it's about love,
and I love you.
If God hadn't said that to me,
I don't think I'd be here.
I think Bishop Robinson, actually,
given the history of our church,
I think in 50 years
there will be a date on our calendar that will
have his name to it,
which is to say that he will be recorded in
the calendar of Saints.
Which brings us to the story
of Matthew Shepard. PBS News has an update for you
tonight on the brutal murder of a gay college student
in Wyoming
in 1998. Matthew was 21,
gay, and a devoted Episcopalian,
so perhaps it was inevitable that he would become something
of a symbol,
even a martyr, in the eyes of that church's first
openly gay Bishop.
Refresh the public's memory tends to be kind of short.
Yeah, two young men took him out onto the Prairie
and beat him unmercifully. And then they did a very
strange thing.
They literally hung him on a fence so that when
the first person who discovered him at first thought it
was a scarecrow,
he died six days later.
It was such a gruesome event,
such a blatantly anti-gay hate crime,
that Matthew's parents were reluctant to bury his ashes for
fear that the gravesite would be desecrated.
It wasn't until 20 years later,
in 2018, that they turned to Bishop Robinson to ask
if the National Cathedral might take their sons ashes.
And here they rest.
And he's safe here from the grave being desecrated.
There was a solemn ceremony presided over by Bishop Robinson.
Thousands attended, many from the LGBTQ community not always welcomed
by their own churches.
So I have three things I want to say to
Matt in addressing Matt gently.
Rest in this place. Bishop Robinson was also speaking to
them.
You are safe now.
Oh yeah. And Matt,
welcome home.
I'm in.
Who were you crying for?
Oh gosh, I was crying for
all of my community who have died
violently
punished or being who they are loving who they love.
I feel like my whole life
took me to that moment because I've been living
my whole life with a foot in the church and
a foot in the gay community,
trying to explain one to the other,
trying to get them to come together again.
And for for that two hours,
it happened. Bishop Robinson's commitment to the gay community and
to his church have already been memorialized at Saint Thomas
Episcopal Church.
Nothing nearly as grand as the National Cathedral,
but this modest Chapel has been named for him.
I am not sure what I would do if I
walked into this kind of an area.
It feels a little strange to me.
I saw my name up there,
but fortunately it's not mine.
It's yours. Next to the Chapel is a columbarium,
a repository for the ashes of select members of the
congregation.
There's a box with Gene
Robinson's name on it. There's something just lovely about knowing
that that's all settled and it's,
you know, just right next to the altar of the
Bishop Gene Robinson Chapel.
How could I want more than that?
They're going to sanctify you at some point or another.
You're in danger of being sainted.
It's really embarrassing. It is and it's not helpful.
Saint Jean,
thou say yes, thou Of
course not. Of course not.
I feel like the least saintly person
ever. But I know I'm not
purist the driven snow. But in my life,
I'm happy with what I've done,
with what God has put in front of me.