From The Living Church:
Posted on: January 12, 2009
The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, has accepted an invitation to offer a prayer at a Jan. 18 inaugural event to welcome the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.
Bishop Robinson said he has not yet composed the prayer he will offer, but said he will not use a Bible.
“While that is a holy and sacred text to me,” he said, “it is not for many Americans. I will be careful not to be especially Christian in my prayer. This is a prayer for the whole nation. It won’t a happy clappy prayer.”
He said he has been told both President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden will attend the event at the Lincoln Memorial.
Clark Stevens, a spokesman for the inaugural committee, said Bishop Robinson was invited because he had offered his advice to the Obama campaign and because of Bishop Robinson’s work on behalf of the church.
Bishop Robinson, who was consecrated Bishop Coadjutor of New Hampshire in 2003, is the first openly gay bishop. The announcement follows weeks of criticism from gay-rights activists over the Obama Administration’s decision to invite Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Community Church in California to give the invocation prayer at the Jan. 20 inauguration. Pastor Warren supported California’s constitutional amendment which prohibited recognizing same-sex partnerships as being identical to heterosexual marriage under law.
Bishop Robinson previously described the decision to invite Pastor Warren as the invocation speaker as a slap in the face, adding in an interview with The New York Times that the “God that [Pastor Warren is] praying to is not the God that I know.”
Bishop Robinson recently told the Concord [N.H.] Monitor, “It’s important for any minority to see themselves represented in some way. Whether it be a racial minority, an ethnic minority, or in our case, a sexual minority. Just seeing someone like you up front matters.”
No comments:
Post a Comment