Gene Robinson

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

When you think of a real celebrity, most people think such a word is limited to primarily entertainers and artists of different mediums. However, there are some figures that I believe truly have the honor of being called celebrities, because their seemingly larger-than-life personalities has made them worthy of the attention of the public at large, and one such man is Gene Robinson.

Gene Robinson has been the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire since 2003 and the first openly gay person to become one in the Episcopal Church. As such, his ordainment sparked media attention and outrage from the more conservative clergy who consider Bishop Robinson a threat to the Episcopal Church's very unity.

He has now chosen to be a prominent participant in Daniel G. Karslake's documentary For The Bible Tells Me So, which was screened at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The film dissects the ongoing ideological clashes between the Christian 'Religious Right' and gay people in America, of which many are considered by the Right, unworthy of God's grace.

When we sat down to talk to the bishop, he was first asked about the basic tenets of the film.

'Well, the name of the film, of course, For The Bible Tells Me So is the second line in the children's hymn, 'Jesus Loves Me, This I Know',' the bishop notes, 'And I'd like to think of the film as being a statement, from not just gay and lesbian people, but from their families that they have come to know God's love from them, which is still countercultural and counter-religious because for 2,000 years, we thought otherwise.'

As the conversation progressed, Bishop Robinson elaborated further on some of the many themes and issues explored in For The Bible Tells Me So.

'I see this film as really being about the intersection of homosexuality and religion in America,' he explains, 'More importantly, it talks about the power of families and the power of love. In a very odd, ironic sense, it's about family values and how love trumps long-held beliefs, when you're confronted by a real person. And I mean, none of the five families featured in this film began positive towards the notion of gay and lesbian people.

'But, then, all of a sudden, they were confronted with a child who came out and of course, that's always how changes happens, which is you have one way of operating in the world and then something happens that the old way of operating in the world that is insufficient,' the bishop adds, 'And then change happens when you reshape your worldview to accommodate this new information. And this case, you got a film that portrays five families who have to reconfigure their worldview in order to love their children and I don't think there's anything more powerful than that.'

The bishop also explained to us what he believes viewers will ultimately learn from the documentary.

'I think there are huge numbers of people out there now who are generally sympathetic toward us, but they just crumble when somebody starts quoting Scripture,' he believes, 'And what I love about this film is that it gives people the tools with which to continue the conversation, as opposed to having it end when they can't say anything back about Scripture. And I think this gives people who are already sympathetic the kind of firm ground that they need to stand on to say, 'Well, actually, you know, although the Bible appears to say that, that's not exactly right.' And so I think that's really, really helpful.'

Bishop Robinson also states that the film in many ways ties to his own experience that has allowed him the opportunity to become a bishop of Episcopal Church.

'In some ways, the film mirrors what's been going on in the Episcopal Church, which we have had almost countless numbers of members and clergy coming out,' he notes, 'And like most families who encounter a child who they think might be gay and then there's a little more talk about it, you first deny it, then you wrestle with it, and so on, and if you're lucky, you get to some kind of an acceptance. But in some sense, I think the Episcopal Church, going through what a family goes through, it all of a sudden, has had to acknowledge that they have a gay child, this Bishop of New Hampshire.

'And much, as a family, finally has to acknowledge a gay child who comes out to them that the Church is going through all of those stages that a family goes through,' the bishop continues, 'And so, in that sense, I think it's a predictive tale about where I think we're heading, which is full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the life and the leadership of the Church.'

Robinson's ordination as bishop was not without fierce opposition as controversial allegations against him were reported in the media, ones that have ultimately proved to be unfounded. We asked the Bishop whether he felt all the hostility from the media and the public ever made him doubtful about being openly gay and being able to successfully pursue his religious calling.

'Actually, I never thought it wasn't worth it,' he says, 'And what enabled me to withstand all of that and continued to in lots of ways is that God seemed so incredibly close by. I often said during that time that praying seemed redundant because God seemed so right next to me.'

'And you know, believe it or not, with all that was going on, with all the security, all of the sharpshooters on the roofs, and that kind of stuff at my consecration, I actually took an hour's nap right before the consecration, partly because I believed it was going to be OK,' Bishop Robinson adds, 'I mean, I didn't want to die, but if I had, that would have been OK, too, in the sense that I believe that God is in control of this thing. And I believe it's moving an extra belief forward, because it's God's will and so, I'm trying to play my small part in that march forward.'

While most Christian sects often cite their lack of tolerance alleging that the Bible clearly states that homosexual is 'sinful', the bishop claims that Episcopal tradition has allowed clergymen in his faith to take a much deeper perspective on Bible interpretation.

'The things that I'm most proud about the Episcopal or Anglican tradition, which is the way we've always done Bible study,' he claims, 'First of all, we ask what did it mean to the person who wrote it and what did it mean to the audience for which he was writing it. And then only then do we ask, is there anything here that is eternally binding. And this is where modern Biblical scholarship has been active the last fifty years. It's not that we've discovered new texts, biblical texts, or holy texts, but that we have discovered so much more about the world in which they were written and about what those words originally meant.'

He even elaborates his point in examples of how he believes Scripture can possibly be misinterpreted.

'In the Hebrew Scriptures, it was understood then that male sperm contained everything necessary for life and that a woman only provided a place for incubation,' Bishop Robinson says, 'That's why in Leviticus, you not only find same sex behavior punished, but masturbation or pulling out after orgasm in a heterosexual relationship. We know the science now. It's based on a fallacy. Therefore, it's always important to ask about the context in which a scripture passage occurred and then to say, has the context changed, do we have any new information, and only then can something eternally binding be there.'

'People who hold Scripture to be this sole authority completely overlook the fact that in John's Gospel, Jesus promises the disciples that when he's gone, he will send the Holy Spirit and that, Scripture says, 'He will lead you into all truth,'' he continues, 'He even goes on to say that 'there are things that I will tell you that you are not ready to hear, that you can't learn yet'.'

Bishop Robinson also believes that the intolerance of homosexuality in many Christian faiths can also come from simple fear built on adherence to perceived tradition and the status quo.

'I had a priest in my diocese who was really negative on the whole gay issue,' the bishop recalls, 'And then in either a moment of weakness or huge vulnerability, told me that at one point in his life, he had to choose and he chose to be married and have kids and have a family. And he went on to say that if we made homosexuality any less condemned, God only knows how many people will choose it.'

'Now, no one but me ever heard him say that,' All they ever heard was his unrelenting opposition on this issue,' he continues, 'But I think it had more to do with that for him, he had chosen to bury that part of himself and make a go out of it as a straight man. And I think his regret maybe that he had chosen that he had and this odd notion, which I don't believe in at all, that everybody would choose it. I don't the think the numbers would be any great than they simply are.'

To challenge the misperception that being religious and gay are incompatible, we asked the bishop to give us his personal perspective on the gay community at large.

'I think for a bit of historical perspective, it was the drag queens that started all this at the Stonewall bar,' he acknowledges, 'I'm very quick to point out I stand on their shoulders. I would not be the Bishop of New Hampshire if a bunch of drag queens in the Village had not gotten mad and started throwing things. We've long since passed the time where people can be silent.'

'I do think that perhaps the gay community have been less than helpful in holding up the examples of coming out as doing so, in the media, on the street corner, is in sort of wildly public display,' Bishop Robinson continues, 'In some ways, we've certainly painted out the coming out process so dramatically that it's actually a lot more scary than it turns out to be.'

He also expounded on how this point ties into his own experience coming out.

'I think, certainly in the movie, my parents talk about this, it turns out to be less traumatic for them, even, than they thought it would be,' the bishop recounts, 'When my parents talk about the isolation they felt, they didn't tell anybody about this, they were ashamed, they assumed everyone would be judgmental.'

'And one of the great joys of having done this movie is, and it actually happened when I was consecrated and was in the news, is that they all of a sudden had their friends calling them, saying, 'Congratulations, are you proud of him''' he adds, 'And it never occurred to them that their friends would be congratulatory rather than judgmental. Though I think a lot of this is our own fear.'

Unlike most prominent American clergymen, who tend to denounce gays as being wicked, we discovered that the bishop has rather a more insightful perspective on the community and how they contribute to society.

'Ultimately, I think that despite the fact that sex is everywhere, on TV and on movies, we largely still live in a Victorian age where we have not learned to talk about this,' Bishop Robinson believes, 'This is actually one of the gifts that gay and lesbian people bring to the Church and into the culture is that we've had have to talk about these things in order to make our way into the world in order to become self-affirming, whole adults and we've just had a lot more practice talking about these things.'

'And in some ways, I think this obsession with homosexuality by the culture is a massive avoidance mechanism for not having to talk about their own sexuality,' he continues, 'But if they ever got around to doing it, we could actually help them, because we've had some real experience doing it. I mean, what openly gay person do you know that hasn't sat up late into the night, talking with somebody, trying to figure this stuff out, and saying things to another human being that most people never talk about' So I think it's something we really have to offer.'

Despite the bishop's optimism of the progress that is continually being made in gay civil rights, he believes that the gap will ultimately take the longest to close for racial civil rights.

'I think the one that will take the longest is racial equality,' he believes, 'Ken Burns, the famous documentary maker, lives in New Hampshire and he and I have talked about this. He believes that race is the ultimate sin that we're dealing with in this country and I think it'll be the last to go. As deeply embedded as patriarchy is and sexism and hetero-sexism, I think we will make strides in those two areas sooner than in the area of race.'

We closed by asking Bishop Robinson what satisfies him most about his role as a clergymen and what he feels he brings to the Episcopal Church as a gay bishop.

'What I find exciting about being a Christian, and particularly being a Christian in the Anglican tradition, is that we believe in a God that's still interacting with the world, still teaching us stuff,' he replies, 'Look how long it took us to learn about people of color and women and now gay and lesbian folk. And sometimes people will say that, when is all this going to end,' and I say, It's never going to end, until we get it right.'

'And as soon as we kind of gotten a leg up on a gay and lesbian people, God's going to point out somebody else we're overlooking to the margins and we'll be called to open up yet again,' the bishop adds, 'I think God is going to keep teaching us as Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would do and I think this is just one of those moments.'