President-elect Barack Obama has invited V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire and a symbol of the gay rights movement, to deliver the prayer at the opening inaugural event at the Lincoln Memorial Sunday.
The invitation is viewed as an effort to placate gay rights activists who were furious at his decision to have the Rev. Rick Warren, an evangelical pastor who opposes same-sex marriage, deliver the high-profile invocation at the inauguration itself.
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Robinson, who advised the Obama campaign on faith and gay rights issues, was among those who had criticized Warren’s selection, calling it a “slap in the face” to gay people.
But just as Warren’s choice infuriated the left, Robinson’s is likely to antagonize the right. As the first openly gay man to be consecrated a bishop in the Anglican Communion, his ordination in 2003 touched off a worldwide rift about homosexuality within the Anglican Communion, spurring a schism within that denomination.
In an interview with the New York Times, Robinson said he believed his inclusion in the inaugural events had been under consideration before the Warren controversy erupted, but that Obama was also seeking to heal any rifts that Warren’s selection had caused among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocates.
“They called up and said this has actually been in the works for a long time,” he said, “and at the same time, we understand that people in the L.G.B.T. community have been somewhat wounded by this choice, and it’s our hope that your selection will go a long way to heal those divides.
“In many ways,” he added, “it just proves that Barack Obama is exactly who he says he was and would be as president, which is someone who is casting a wide net that will include all Americans.”
Robinson said that his partner of more than 20 years, Mark Andrews, would accompany him to the inauguration. The two had a civil union ceremony last summer in a New Hampshire church.
The event Robinson will participate in is a concert featuring Beyoncé, Bono, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder.
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