1 Boring Old Man

Gay Episcopal bishop to retire amid death threats
Raw Story
from Agence France-Presse
November 6th, 2010

WASHINGTON — The first openly gay US Episcopal bishop, whose consecration rocked the worldwide Anglican fellowship, has said he will retire early because death threats and controversy had placed "constant strain" on his family. Bishop Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire said he would retire in 2013, when he will be 65.

"The fact is, the last seven years have taken their toll on me, my family and you," Robinson wrote in a message posted on the diocese website. "Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as bishop have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years."

Robinson was openly gay when he was elected bishop in 2003, but it aroused such passions that he wore a bullet-proof vest to his consecration. His ordination as bishop – the first of an openly gay priest in any Christian denomination – so divided the church that its General Convention in 2006 called a moratorium on "any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church."

Then in July 2009, the church voted to end the moratorium even though the issue had opened a widening rift within the broader Anglican church. Some Episcopal parishes in the United States responded by breaking with the US church and aligning themselves with conservative Anglican bishops in Africa and South America.The Episcopal Church is a US branch of the Anglican Communion, whose mother church is the Church of England…

By January, 2013, I will be approaching my 66^th birthday.  (This is where you say, “But bishop, you look so young!”)  I will have been a bishop over nine years, a reasonable and typical tenure for a bishop my age in the Episcopal Church, in what I consider to be one of the great and healthy dioceses of The Episcopal Church.  Since the very beginning, I have attempted to discern God’s will for me and for you, and this decision comes after much prayer and discernment about what God wants for us at this time.  I received the diocese under my pastoral care in good shape, thanks to Bishops Phil Smith and Doug Theuner, and believe that I will be passing it along to my successor ALSO in good shape.  I have tried to be a faithful steward of the trust and responsibility you placed in me.  Only you can be the judge of that.

The fact is, the last seven years have taken their toll on me, my family, and YOU.  Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as Bishop, have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years, and in some ways, YOU.  While I believe that these attitudes, mostly outside the Diocese, have not distracted me from my service to you, I would be less than honest if I didn’t say that they have certainly added a burden and certain anxiety to my episcopate.  While my resignation may not stop such pressures completely, it does seem to be the right time for me to initiate the nearly-two-year process for your election of a new bishop.  A three-month overlap will allow for a smooth and appropriate transition.

There are still things left for me to do.  First and foremost, there is continuing to be a good bishop for you during the next two years.  I don’t intend to be a “lame duck,” as you deserve a bishop during this interim that is “on all burners” for the remaining two years.  I intend to continue to be fully engaged as your Bishop in the remaining time we lead the diocese together.  You can do YOUR part by not sweeping me aside, either literally or emotionally, over the next two years, while I lead as your Bishop Diocesan.

Let me assure you that I am in good health – having lost 25 pounds put on over the last seven years in part by eating all your good food!!  Especially that coconut cream pie in Colebrook!  I continue in my fifth year of sobriety, which has been a total blessing to me.  I continue to treasure my work and ministry with you, and it is a total joy and privilege to serve you and to serve God in this holy collaboration with you.  After two more final, vigorous years with you, there are other things that I hope to do, in a new chapter in my life and ministry.

The fate of the "firsts" isn’t altogether easy. Those black kids that were the "firsts" mostly had difficult, maybe disappointing lives. The "first" women certainly took a hit. Look at Speaker Nancy Pelosi. For that matter, look at President Obama. There has never been a negative campaign so intense leveled at such obviously competent people in my lifetime. It has not been at all pretty. But I guess that’s how it goes for "firsts."

I grew up with something that seems pertinent. My father’s parents were Italian Immigrants who never spoke English. He grew up poor in a coal miner family in a coal miner town where the sea of immigrants from Continental Europe fleeing poverty worked in mines owned by established British [mainly Irish] former immigrants. He was the object of prejudice and over-performed [academics, football] to prove himself. He came South to play football, and stayed because the South wasn’t prejudiced [something I see as a monumental irony]. He may have worked his way out of the prejudice, but the scars remained – deep scars. Those scars had an huge effect on my life, but indirectly. If I was directly ever the object of prejudice because of my Italian extraction, I never knew it. I got to grow up "equal" – a regular, straight, "white guy" on a regular street in a regular town.

With Americans born Black, Hispanic, Gay, even Female, such an assimilation is not really possible. There’s no "geographic cure." And so, at least for now, they’ve had to live abnormal lives like my father’s – and it can be pretty expensive. As a child, I just didn’t get it. I didn’t understand the paranoia or the pressured injunctions to succeed, but I got enough of the latter to be pleased to retire at 62 to a quiet life off the grid. My father retired at 51, exhausted. I guess it takes more than a generation for the effects of prejudice to wear away even in the best of circumstances.