By Kerry Eleveld

Originally published on Advocate.com January 30 2009 1:00 AM ET

New
Hampshire’s Bishop Gene Robinson has had a busy month
-- delivering the invocation at the inaugural opening
ceremony, sitting on the President’s platform
during the swearing in, and being the focal point of
so much media fascination.

Besides the LGBT
folks on President Obama's staff, Robinson probably has
more insights about the new commander-in-chief's first
couple weeks on the job than any gay politico, and
here he shares his reflections with Advocate.com and
tells us what he anticipates in the days ahead.

Advocate.com:I noticed that you addressed your opening ceremony invocation to
the "God of our many understandings.” What
inspired that approach?V. Gene Robinson: What I wanted this prayer to
be was something that, really, Americans of every faith
could pray along with me. I went back and read
inaugural prayers for the last 30-40 years and was
just horrified at how overtly and aggressively Christian
they were and all I could think was, 'If I’m a
Jew, If I’m a Muslim, If I’m a Sikh or
Hindu, where am I in this prayer?'

So I addressed
the prayer to “the God of our many
understandings” -- it’s actually
something I learned in the 12-step recovery program
I’m in for alcoholism. My experience is,
it’s a phrase that allows people to buy in, no
matter what their understanding of God is, and is inclusive
in a profound way. No one of us knows everything there
is to know about God. I would say that no one religion
or one denomination knows all that there is to know
about God. And so each of us has our own perception, owns
our own piece of God.

You also asked for certain things, such as “anger
at discrimination” and
“discomfort,” that are pretty atypical in prayers. There is a wonderful blessing that I use often
in my ministry -- it’s called a four-fold
Franciscan blessing. It prays for things that we
wouldn’t normally consider to be blessings -- like
tears, like discomfort. And the reason I love that
blessing is that it takes people by surprise and they
really perk up and listen. I took that as my
inspiration.

The most amazing
feedback that I got was from non-Christian people -- a
number of Jews, a number of un-churched people, a number of
people from different contexts who would not describe
themselves as Christian -- who said to me that, for
the first time ever at such an event, they felt
included and felt as if they could, in fact, pray along with
me. That really meant the world to me.

Also, on the
other side, I have received hundreds -- maybe even as many
as a thousand -- email messages and letters and so on from
“good Christian people” literally just
attacking me for not using Jesus’s name, not
using the name of the trinity, saying that I abandoned my
faith, that I had denied Christ. There’s almost
more negative reaction to that than anything
I’ve done in the last five years.

They may have even forgotten you were gay.Exactly. Who would have thought I could make them forget
that?

I was particularly struck by the contrast between
your prayer and that of Rick Warren, who invoked
the name of Jesus in several different languages. And then sort of forced us all to say "The
Lord’s Prayer." I have to say that I love "The
Lord’s Prayer" -- it’s a part of my faith
tradition, it’s always been a part of my life. But
for the first two or three phrases, I just choked on
the words, I just couldn’t do it – just
because I was so aware of the people around me.

And then my
political mind kicked in and I thought, it will be just my
luck that the CNN cameras will be on me not praying "The
Lord’s Prayer" in the middle of this, and
I’m not here to make a big protest against Rick
Warren. So I did join in but, literally, I found myself
choking on what I consider to be beloved words.

Speaking of politics, you’ve said in a few
pre-inaugural interviews that you have pressed President
Obama on LGBT issues and you’re convinced
that he’s a friend of the community. What
specifically did you raise and what were his reactions? I don’t remember the specifics, but
knowing me, I raised “don’t ask,
don’t tell,” DOMA, I know I mentioned a fully
inclusive ENDA -- and on those things, he was quite
specific in terms of being right where I wanted him to
be. The place where that diverged of course, as we all
know, none of the viable Democratic candidates endorsed gay
marriage.  But my sense is that he understands
why all of the legal protections and rights that come
with marriage are appropriate and necessary for gay
and lesbian couples and will be supportive of that. And
I’m not at all convinced that he won’t
eventually be supportive of gay marriage. But I think
for political reasons he knew that would be very, very
difficult in the primary fight not to mention the general
election.

Of course, earlier this month, the Windy City
Times uncovered the fact that during his 1996
bid for the Illinios state senate, President Obama said
on their questionnaire that he supported full gay
marriage rights. My guess is -- and I have absolutely no evidence
from him about this -- that as he began to think about
a possible run for the presidency, he was politically
smart enough to know that he needed to win the general
election in order to be able to do the things that he felt
called to do and that, [gay marriage], in his and
every other candidate’s judgment, was a third
rail.

As a person of faith, does that bother you at all? I think life in general is always a balancing
act between what is right and what is workable. And
you don’t get a chance to do the right things a
lot of times, if you’re not in a place to affect
those changes. So sometimes you’re not able to
say as frankly and as clearly, what’s going on
with you. Some people would see that as hypocrisy or
compromise. I think it’s the dance we all do.
There are things that I personally believe that I
would not say from a pulpit -- partially because I have a
responsibility to the church, to teach what the church
teaches and, as a Bishop, I’m a representative
of that institution. Is that compromise, or is that
selling out? I don’t know. But maybe it’s the
dance we all have to do between the values we actually
hold in our heart and what we’re actually able
to accomplish in a community as diverse as America.

Did you ever get clear on how it happened that your
comments weren’t included in HBO’s
production of the opening ceremony? No, so here’s what I decided about that.
First, there was probably no way to determine where
and with whom that decision got made. Second of all,
it was over, and I think the last thing the gay community
needs to be doing right now is picking a fight with
the new president or his inaugural committee. My
feeling was, it was done, it was over, let’s move
on. I received formal apologies from both the inaugural
committee and HBO. And I was just willing to let that
go.

And as much I
would have liked the viewing audience to have heard it, the
attention that was drawn to the words I had spoken because
of the controversy about why it had been eliminated,
probably gave it more attention than it would have
gotten if it had been included in the broadcast. The
video of my prayer on YouTube, has had a quarter of a
million hits and I’m getting feedback from all over
the country about people who printed out my prayer and
used it at a meeting, or used it at a church service,
or whatever.

Is it true, as the London Times reported, that
President Obama sought your counsel during the election,
on what it was like to be a first? Partly true, partly not true. The headline gave
people that impression that Barack had sought me out
about that. Well, that’s ludicrous. Barack
Obama is quite his own person, and I’m the last
person he needs to seek out about anything.

However, early on
in the New Hampshire primary, we did get a chance to
meet several times, and once we had quite a lengthy
conversation about being the first. That’s sort
of a special bond I feel that I have with him because
there are particular joys and especially particular burdens
that come with being the first at anything. The very first
thing he said to me when we met for the first time
was, 'Well, you’re a trouble maker,' and I said
something like, 'It takes one to know one,' and we both
laughed. Of course, at that point, he was on nobody’s
radar screen, in April or May of 2007.

Do you have anything to add? I continue to be confident that the new
president understands us and our issues and that this
will be the friendliest president to LGBT people that
we have ever had in the White House. At the same time, I was
very critical of his decision to invite Rick Warren
and I really do believe that just because we are
feeling positive, doesn’t mean we can stop being
vigilant or stop holding his feet to the fire about our
issues.

In moments of disappointment, like when you first
heard about Rick Warren, what spiritual concepts do you
turn to in order to temper that disappointment? Right off the bat what I thought and what I
often think is, no one of us always gets it right.
That’s just the human condition. Not even the best
of us will always get it right.