In a post-screening discussion, Gene Robinson, ninth bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire and the first openly gay and partnered priest told an audience that had just viewed a film offering a glimpse of his life, that the church should get out of the marriage business.
“We deputize the clergy as agents to certify marriage,” Robinson said. In doing so the church improperly has been able to assert its beliefs on the institute marriage, which, he says, is a secular and legal contract with the state.
Robinson made the remarks after the Valentine’s Day Eve, Washington D.C. premiere of Love Free or Die at the Landmark E Street Theatre. AFI/SILVERDOCS and The Center for American Progress were among the groups that provided support for the screening.
In an effort to help us understand the paradox of Robinson, a spiritual leader who also happens to have a husband, director Macky Alston first takes us to the Lambeth Conference 2008 in Canturbury, England, a once-every-ten-years global gathering of bishops of the Anglican church, from which the Episcopal Church in the U.S. takes its roots. As an openly gay priest, Robinson has been barred from attending some of the events.
Next we visit Robinson’s home in New Hampshire. We meet Robinson’s partner, Mark, his parents, his daughters and his church family. Then we are off to Washington, D.C., a gay pride parade in New York City and finally the 2009 annual meeting of the Episcopal Church. The business of this year’s meeting to decide whether to ordain openly gay and lesbian priests and whether to recognize the union of same sex couples in states that recognize gay marriage.
Robinson and this controversy over homosexuality and the Anglican church came on my radar in 2009 when as President-elect, Barack Obama selected Robinson to participate in official ceremonies marking his inaugration as 44th president of the United States.
At that time I was a freelance producer for the Wall Street Journal Online. Alston’s crew filmed us interviewing Robinson at St. Thomas' Parish, an Episcopalian church in Dupont Circle. I signed a release form authorizing the use of footage of me for their film--so I was curious to find out if some of that footage made the final cut.
In our interview Robinson said that he and Obama discussed the president-elect’s safety as the first African American to take the office of president of the United States. What he and we didn’t know then was that someone with a sawed off shotgun and pictures of Robinson and his patner, also had made the journey to Washington, D.C. Robinson said during the screening that he wasn’t afraid.
“Death is not the worst thing,” he said. “Not living your life is the worst thing. We decided not to be paralyzed by it.”
However, Robinson cites the challenge of his celebrity in his decision to retire next year.
"The fact is, the last seven years have taken their toll on me, my family and you," Robinson said in Fall 2010 at the New Hampshire Diocese annual convention. "Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as bishop, have been a constant strain."
"While I believe that these attitudes, mostly outside the Diocese, have not distracted me from my service to you, I would be less than honest if I didn't say that they have certainly added a burden and certain anxiety to my episcopate."
In Love Free or Die, Alston captures what might be described as the normalcy of Robinson’s relationship in what some have described as an abomination. The most compelling parts of the film for me were the interviews in which Robinson and Mark trim a Chrismas tree, describe their courtship and decisions to become a couple.
I also found the interviews with Robinson’s daughters, his mother and his father at Robinson’s wedding quite revealing in the development of Alston's theme of love trumping tradition.
The film screened last month at the Sundance Film Festival and is being released as a major victory for same-sex unions has been reached in the U.S. Just last week a federal appeals court struck down a gay marriage ban in California.
Rather than using the church to certify marriage, Robinson recommends two separate ceremonies—one that recognizes the legal and civil nature of the union and then one that provides a religious blessing of the union.
“Our full inclusion [in society] is an inevitability, but after the structures are gone, there still will be work to do," Robinson said, comparing the path on which gays and lesbians are treading to that of the challenges civil rights and equal rights proponents continue to face, despite laws that outlaw bias based on race and gender.
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