Gene Robinson, the world’s first openly gay Bishop, was in London last week for the opening of Love Free or Die at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, a documentary film about the Church’s fear of homosexuality. David McGillivray met him…
Gene Robinson wore a bulletproof vest when he was consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. He caused further controversy in 2008 when he married his partner, Mark Andrew. But the film Love Free or Die comes to the conclusion that gay bishops (there are now two) haven’t brought about the dire consequences predicted by the worldwide Anglican community. It ends with Robinson’s Episcopal Church voting to allow Bishops to bless same-sex marriages.
I’m atheist and even I found the film inspiring. It gives real hope for the future.
Every LGBT person needs to be interested in the role religion is playing because I really do believe that the church, the synagogue and the mosque are the most responsible for the oppression that we live under. Even if you’re not religious it’s important to understand the religious arguments that are being made and to counter them because if we get that problem solved then we will all be better off.
I was surprised to hear you put so much blame on religion.
Even people who are not religious know the language of oppression. I was sitting with six young gay and lesbian kids and not a single one of them had ever been to Sunday school, they’d never had a day of religious training in their lives, and yet they all knew the word “abomination”. If you hate gay people it’s very easy to grab on to the biblical thing and use it against us.
How can it be that, when all the world’s major religions agree that homosexuality is a sin, that you can be Christian and gay?
Well, that’s about a two day discussion. But to give you the quick version – most people don’t understand that sexual orientation as a category only dates back to the late 19th century. It was first posited then that a certain minority of us would be affectionately attracted to people of the same gender. So when you read scripture, whether that be Jewish, Christian or Islamic, you’re talking about a culture in which everyone is presumed to be heterosexual and therefore to act in a same sex manner is to be going against one’s nature. It would never have occurred to the ancient mind that same sex attraction is natural for a certain number of us.
You got a big laugh when you said that the Anglican Church in the UK should preach what it practises.
Here in England many people are practising a kind of tolerance, even acceptance of LGBT people, which they’re not willing to own up to in their words. It would be a huge step forward if people would just be honest about what’s going on. There’s no one that doesn’t know it. The people in the pews know it, the Bishops know it, the clergy knows it. It is mystifying to an American like me to see that kind of hypocrisy when it would be just so easy to say, “You know what? We got this wrong so let’s stop getting it wrong.”
“The church, the synagogue and the mosque are the most responsible for the oppression that we live under.”
Finally three quick questions. Are you really, as your daughter claims, the ultimate extrovert?
Yes. No matter what test I’ve taken, I have no introvert points whatever.
Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?
No, I’m not.
What do you think of the film?
It’s a surreal experience to see yourself up there on the big screen like that. But I guess I did permit myself to think, gosh! Well done!
