An Unholy Alliance

Obama and the Gay Bishop: 'Three Private Meetings'

Today I had the chance to discuss the US election with Bishop Gene Robinson, who is briefly in London for the annual Stonewall awards where he won 'Hero of the Year'.

But he was actually most interesting on his private meetings with President-elect Barack Obama. Bishop Gene said: 'I had the great honour of having three private conversations with him.' These took place in May and June last year and were not initiated by Robinson.

'I was actually sought out by his campaign. He had quite an extraordinary outreach to the religious community. By that I mean all religious communities. And through those contacts I had the opportunity to speak to him. And I must say I don't know if it is an expression here in England or not but he is the genuine article. I think he is exactly who he says he is. And I serve on the church pension fund board at the national level and  I serve with someone who has been his friend since Barack was in college and says what you see is exactly who he has been for as long as I've known him.

'He is impressive, he's smart, he is an amazing listener. For someone who's called on to speak all the time when he asks you a question it is not for show, he is actually wanting to know what you think and listens, or at least gives you that impression. I think we've had eight years of someone who has listened to almost no-one. So the thought of having a president who gathers the best people around him and then listens to what they have to say to him, especially the things he doesn't want to hear I think he will be open to, that is very refreshing. So I'm absolutely delighted about him.

They did not discuss Anglican issues in great depth. 'He certainly indicated his broad and deep support for the full civil rights for gay and lesbian people. 

They discussed what it was like to be 'first' in something - first gay bishop, potentially first black president.

Bishop Gene said: 'One of the things Barack and I did talk about when we were together was just  the experience of being first and the danger of that and we talked about being demonised by one side and, I don't know if the word is angelicised, by the other. Expectations are laid on you both negative and positive and neither are true. And the importance of remaining centred and grounded in the middle of that so that you don't begin to believe either your negative press or your positive press.'

'We did not talk about assassination specifically but we did talk about the physical risks to ploughing new territory. I don't think anyone can have observed life in America in the last century without noting that we tend to be a more violent society than most and that the availability of weapons and the willingness of some people to use them present enormous challenges. At the end of the day you have to decide whether or not you are going to be paralysed by threats and by violent possibilities  or whether you are just move on and do what you feel called to do despite the risks. (Ruth Gledhill)

Earlier Report from CEN last September

The Bishop of New Hampshire has broken with tradition and endorsed a candidate for political office. In a letter published on “LGBT for Obama,” a website that states it serves as the “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community’s online campaign to educate voters on John McCain’s anti-gay policies” Bishop Gene Robinson called on all LGBT voters to “put our differences and disappointments aside, and get behind the one candidate who has our interests at heart.”

On Sept 4 Bishop Robinson wrote LGBT voters were “faced with the most stark choice in recent memory, with ramifications for our community like no other. If nothing else convinces you to vote for Barack Obama, surely the likelihood of the next president appointing one, two, or possibly even three Supreme Court justices should do it.”

While endorsing specific issues and or programmes is not uncommon, lending the support of the episcopal office to a single candidate is uncommon. It also skirts US tax laws, as clergy or church endorsements are prohibited by a 1954 amendment to the Internal Revenue Code. Nonprofit, tax-exempt entities may not “participate in, or intervene in . . . any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.”

Past challenges to the law have so far failed, with the Courts holding that while clergy are free to speak out on religious, moral and political issues they cannot use tax-exempt resources to support or oppose candidates for public office, which includes statements from the pulpit by church officials and other indications of campaign intervention.

In May of 2000, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously held that the IRS properly revoked the tax exemption of the Church at Pierce Creek, a congregation near Binghamton, N.Y., that bought newspaper ads in 1992 opposing presidential candidate Bill Clinton.

Bishop Robinson said that the election of John McCain would lead to the packing of the US Supreme Court with justices that would rule against the recognition of gay marriages. “With Barack Obama, we have someone who is utterly sympathetic to our full and equal rights as citizens.”

He added that while Senator Obama “won’t say he’s for equal marriage rights” Bishop Robinson knew from his “own private conversations with him that he is totally in our court. I believe him, and I trust him, not to throw us under the bus when the election is over.”