First Openly Gay Anglican Bishop Gene Robinson Announces Divorce

Mark Andrew, left, and Bishop Robinson during their civil union
ceremony in 2008, two years before they officially married

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Bishop Robinson, who became a symbol for gay rights far beyond the church while deeply dividing the world's Anglicans, plans to divorce his husband

Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican church, whose ordination split the church in the United States, is to divorce his husband after four years of marriage.

The 66-year-old retired bishop married in 2010 when the state of New Hampshire legalised gay marriage, but had been in a relationship with his partner, Mark Andrew, for more than 25 years before announcing the split in an email to the diocese of New Hampshire last weekend.

In an article explaining the divorce, Bishop Robinson said that specific reasons would be remain private, but said responsibility fell “on the shoulders of both parties” while paying tribute to Mr Andrew as one of the “kindest, most generous and loyal human beings on earth”.

“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,” he wrote on The Daily Beast website.

“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.” » | Sunday, May 04, 2014

THE DAILY BEAST: A Bishop’s Decision to Divorce » | Gene Robinson | Sunday, May 04, 2014

Gay US Bishop Attacks Treatment of Gay and Lesbian Clergy by Church of England
THE GUARDIAN: Gene Robinson chides Archbishop of Canterbury for talk of two-tier Anglican communion

Gene Robinson, the Espiscopalian bishop of New Hampshire, says gay and lesbian clerby are treated by the Church of England as a problem to be solved. Photo: The Guardian
The first openly gay bishop in the Anglican communion has launched an outspoken attack on the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Gene Robinson, the Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire, criticised the policy of the Church of England towards gay and lesbian clergy. Alluding to the significant number of clergy who are gay, he said: "I think gay clergy in the Church of England are thought of as a problem to be solved or at least lived with, rather than a gift from God."

Robinson, who is in Britain to speak at the Greenbelt festival at Cheltenham Racecourse this weekend, added that he could not accept the archbishop's recent comments that if the Episcopal church refused to uphold the current moratorium on consecrating actively gay bishops or blessing civil unions, the communion might have to be reorganised into a two-tier, or "two-track" model. "I can't imagine anything that would be more abhorrent to Jesus than a two-tier church," he said. "Either we are children of God and brothers and sisters in Christ, or we aren't. There are not preferred children and second-class children. There are just children of God." >>> Aida Edemariam | Friday, August 28, 2009