Gay Bishop Says Obama ‘Stands With Us’ on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show

Appearing on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson said President-elect Barack Obama “stands with us,” and signaled he was ready to move past the controversy of his invitation.

Robinson is the controversial New Hampshire Episcopal bishop whose consecration in 2003 has split the Anglican Church.

He has been invited to give an opening prayer at a Sunday inaugural event attended by Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Obama is scheduled to speak at the event which will be broadcast on HBO.

The announcement has resurrected the controversy surrounding the choice of Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation prayer at the January 20 inaugural ceremony, a prologue to Obama’s historic inaugural address. Gay activists say Warren is homophobic. He likened gay marriage to an incestuous relationship and polygamy, and supported passage of a controversial California gay marriage ban.

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Archbishop of Canterbury accused of creating confusion in the church

The Rt Rev John Chane, the Bishop of Washington, has criticised Dr Rowan Williams’s handling of the crisis over gay clergy in the Church.

In a letter to his clergy, he claims that the archbishop has encouraged conservatives who are determined to destroy the Anglican Church by listening to their demands for a breakaway province.

Dr Williams last week met with the primates of Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, who boycotted this summer’s Lambeth Conference and instead held their own conference, called Gafcon, which proposed the creation of a rival global network of traditionalists.

They have supported moves to set up a new Church in America opposed to gay clergy and led by the deposed bishop of Pittsburgh, Bob Duncan.

“It would be folly for the Archbishop to even consider recognising a non-geographical province because it would unleash chaos in the Communion, with theological minorities in every jurisdiction seeking to affiliate with likeminded Anglicans in other provinces,” said Bishop Chane.

“Unfortunately, the Archbishop has contributed to the confusion and anxiety the leaders of the proposed province have sought to foster by meeting on numerous occasions with [Bob] Duncan and his allies.

“These meetings have bestowed an unwarranted sense of legitimacy on those who seek to deconstruct the Anglican Communion.”

His comments represent the first attack from the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church in the US since the Lambeth Conference, which achieved an uneasy truce in the battle over homosexuality.

The bishop, who is one of the leading figures in the US Church and conducted the funeral of Ronald Reagan, said that the plan to create a 39th province was an attempt to undermine the current leadership.

He added: [It] is a rejection of the respectful diversity and generous orthodoxy that defines the Communion. It flies in the very face of what it truly means to be an Anglican.”

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