Gene Robinson, First Openly Gay Bishop, Announces Divorce

Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop whose election sharply divided the Anglican church in 2003, has announced that he and his husband have decided to divorce. Robinson announced his separation from Mark Andrew, to whom he was joined in a 2008 civil union, in both an email to the Diocese of New Hampshire and an article for the Daily Beast.

Robinson, who retired in 2012, stated in his article that the details of his divorce would remain “appropriately private.” Stopping short of any personal discussion, Bishop Robinson did not hesitate to acknowledge his own role in the separation.

I know this flies in the face of the common practice of regarding one party in a divorce as the bad guy and one the good guy. The fact remains that it takes two people to make a marriage and two people to make a divorce. The reasons for ending a marriage fall on the shoulders of both parties: the missed opportunities for saying and doing the things that might have made a difference, the roads not taken, the disappointments endured but not confronted.

It is at least a small comfort to me, as a gay rights and marriage equality advocate, to know that like any marriage, gay and lesbian couples are subject to the same complications and hardships that afflict marriages between heterosexual couples. All of us sincerely intend, when we take our wedding vows, to live up to the ideal of “til death do us part.” But not all of us are able to see this through until death indeed parts us.

-Bishop Gene Robinson

Robinson’s announcement seemed certain to draw sharp criticism from conservative elements of the church, who have never fully accepted him. Robinson received death threats during his 2003 consecration, an event that spurred several dioceses to break from the Episcopalian church in protest. Robinson was also barred from attending the Lambeth conference in 2008, a meeting of Anglican Bishops held once every decade.

Episcopalian Douglas LeBlanc, who reported on Robinson’s consecration for Christianity Today, addressed the reaction of his critics, saying they “will perhaps rub his nose in this for the rest of his life when he’s debating folks on the sexuality wars.” LeBlanc also pointed out that while some in the church may see Robinson’s divorce as an opportunity to attack him, it will likely do little to stop the Episcopal church’s ongoing debate on same-sex marriage.

“I’m sure there might be some conservatives who might say, ‘We told you so all along, if you depart from church teachings on homosexuality, you’re opening the door to all kinds of chaos.’ In many ways, I think you are. But I think it’s imperative to say, the House of Bishops is not lacking on heterosexual sin.”

-Douglas LeBlanc

The 66 year old Robinson is widely viewed as a gay rights pioneer and advocate. He delivered the opening benediction for President Obama’s 2009 inauguration, and since retiring has been named a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think-tank in Washington. Ordained as a priest in 1973, Robinson publicly came out as gay when he and his wife divorced in 1986.