As I watched inauguration coverage today, I kept waiting for Gene Robinson’s prayer… and I never saw it — I flipped between several channels, and don’t think it was actually aired anywhere. I just did a search for it though, and found this on youtube and this transcript. It’s really quite beautiful; you should read it.
I am very, very tempted to point out that it is probably not a mistake that this was left out, and that if that is so I am irked by it seriously pissed off. He’s gay! He’s a bishop! Get over it! The whole mood of the day was supposed to be moving forward. Maybe all of the networks collectively assumed that viewers would be so touched by images of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen and stories of hundred-year-old African American great-great grandmothers living to vote for a black man that we would excuse the exclusion of a highly-anticipated speaker. I am of course pleased that America has come this far, but people, please, this whole civil rights thing is not over, not resolved, and not going away. Don’t get complacent because we have a president of a racial minority. Discrimination is alive and well ugly as ever.
Maybe sixty years from now we will be inaugurating a gay or lesbian president, and people will be tearfully sharing stories of decades ago when a gay bishop couldn’t pray on live TV…
Filed under: bitching, drama queen, politics, random, ranting, women's issues | Tagged: Barack Obama, civil rights, gay rights, Gene Robinson, Inauguration, media |
E x h a l i n g Emily 
it probably wasn’t because he is gay that it was left out — it was, sadly, most likely simply because he was praying.
gay people are fairly well represented in the media, which generally has a liberal slant and would probably be more likely to show this particular bishop.
btw, as a christian, though, my main problem with this bishop is not that he is gay. my problem is that he has declared that only parts of the bible are true – that certain parts (miraculously the parts that refer to him) are no longer valid or applicable.