Report: Bishop Robinson enters civil union

Manchester Union Leader ^ | 06/08/08 | Manchester Union Leader

[mkleesma]

CONCORD – V. Gene Robinson, New Hampshire's Episcopal bishop, entered into a civil union yesterday with his partner of 20 years, Mark Andrew, according to WMUR-TV.

The ceremony, held at St. Paul Church, coincided with the fifth anniversary of Robinson's election as the nation's first openly gay Episcopal bishop.

The state Legislature passed a law last year allowing gay couples to enter civil unions; the law took effect Jan. 1.

In an interview last month on NBC's "The Today Show," Robinson said the decision to enter into a civil union came after he received death threats about his decision to attend the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops this summer, despite a decision by church leaders not to invite him to participate.

"I am simply not going to put my life in jeopardy without putting into place the protections for my beloved partner and my children and my grandchildren that are offered to me in a civil union," Robinson told Lauer.

According to a report by Religion News Service, Robinson and Andrew had planned to hold their civil union ceremony on the steps of the state Capitol, but "security concerns" prompted them to move it indoors.

[mkleesma]

...I don't know my state, (or my church) anymore. Time to leave.

[CWWren]

Gene and Mark will be holding hands as they ride the escalator down to hell.

[Kolokotronis]

I hear the Devil wore Prada.

[AmericaUnited]

Search is your friend

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2027826/posts

I really don’t want to read about this pervert twice.

[Leisler]

Soon to be leading/Marshall's at ‘Gay Pride’ day parades all over the country.

[Gorzaloon]

"V. Gene Robinson, New Hampshire's Episcopal bishop, entered into a civil union Man's Bum..."

...I don't know my state, (or my church) anymore. Time to leave.

I left it years ago. Or it left me.

[Leisler]

You might have to leave New Hampsire.

Yesterdays NY Slimes.

William Siroty and William Stelling
By JOEL ELLIOTT
WHEN Dr. William Siroty first asked William Stelling to marry him in 2004, he was not quite prepared for the response he received.

It was: “You’re proposing to me over the phone?”

Dr. Siroty hadn’t thought of it that way. He had impulsively called Mr. Stelling from work to suggest they take a road trip from their town of Amherst, N.H., to New Paltz, N.Y., where same-sex couples were being married by the town’s mayor.

Undaunted by Mr. Stelling’s reaction, Dr. Siroty, an internist at the Nashua Medical Group in Nashua. N.H., went straight from his office to a florist shop and then headed home. When Mr. Stelling answered the doorbell, he found Dr. Siroty on one knee.

“Will you marry me?” Dr. Siroty asked, rose in hand.

“That kind of melted my heart,” Mr. Stelling later said.

But a rose was for several years the furthest they could progress. New Hampshire at that time did not allow same-sex civil unions, and the State Supreme Court in Kingston, N.Y., quickly barred New Paltz officials from performing marriages for same-sex couples.

Dr. Siroty and Mr. Stelling, now both 56, have not always been of the same mind.

They met in 1981 at Dr. Siroty’s 30th birthday party in New York, where both were then living and working.

“He was gorgeous; he was interesting,” Dr. Siroty recalled. “And from my perspective, maybe he was slightly exotic. I can’t say it was love at first sight, but you get the idea.”

Mr. Stelling spent many of his formative years in Asia, eventually landing in the East Village, where he became a founder of the Fun Gallery, which helped introduce graffiti art, including that of the late Jean-Michel Basquiat, to New York.

Dr. Siroty, from Long Island, made his way to Georgetown University, from which he received his medical degree. He then began practicing in New York.

For six months the two men pursued an intense romance until Mr. Stelling, who enjoyed New York’s clubs and arts scenes and had some exploring to do, ended it.

“He would say that I dumped him,” said Mr. Stelling, now a supervisor at the call center at PlumChoice Online PC Services, in Billerica, Mass., a provider of computer support. “But I would like to say that I set him free to explore.”

The two had many mutual friends, but for nearly 10 years, Mr. Stelling and Dr. Siroty had no contact other than to occasionally glare at each other from across a restaurant, Mr. Stelling said.

Then, at a Christmas party in 1990, Mr. Stelling suggested they see each other again.

“Over my dead body,” Dr. Siroty recalled thinking. But Mr. Stelling persisted.

“He just kept calling him and calling him, asking him out on dates,” said Susan Siroty Myers, Dr. Siroty’s sister. It wasn’t until the spring that Mr. Stelling succeeded in winning him over.

Dr. Siroty explained how wariness gave way to love: “I remembered why I liked him. He’s witty, he’s cute. He’s funny. He’s very smart. He’s knowledgeable — he knows something about everything.

Mr. Stelling’s mother, Cassie Stelling of Harlingen, Tex., whom he describes as conservative, at first was not sure how to approach her son’s relationship.

“Are you and Dr. Bill close?” his mother asked, Mr. Stelling recalled.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Are you very close?”

“Yes, mother.”

A pause.

“Are you as close as can be?”

When he again said yes, she said: “Well you know, that’s good. Everyone needs to have someone to love.”

In January of this year, when New Hampshire began allowing same-sex partners to enter into civil unions, Dr. Siroty and Mr. Stelling decided to follow up on the promise they had made in 2004.

On May 25, on the grassy lawn of the Bedford Village Inn in Bedford, N.H., Dr. Siroty and Mr. Stelling stood before Elizabeth Campbell, a justice of the peace, and more than 130 guests, and vowed to honor and love each other. Friends from all over the world, including several from Mr. Stelling’s sixth-grade class at the International School Bangkok, attended.

“He has been looking for a soul mate and he finally found one in Bill,” Dr. Siroty’s sister said of her brother. “He found peace and love that he had never had before.”

Beaming, Dr. Siroty and Mr. Stelling walked hand-in-hand down the aisle, and, instead of a single rose, showers of pink petals rained on the formally dressed couple.

[Vigilanteman]

If Gene Robinson was sincere in his love for his church, he would quietly admit he had a problem with homosexuality and resign from the priesthood, ministry or whatever his church calls it. He wouldn't drag the entire congregation into it. Those who can't abide in changing the laws of God have no choice but to leave their church since the church has proven itself more concerned with being politically correct and trendy than in following the laws of God.

I understand that, sadly, in most cases those who have to leave will have contributed far more to building the church than those who choose to remain. But there is already a state church of secular humanism. Robinson has been allowed to hijack the Episcopal Church and merge it with that body.

[sirchtruth]

The state Legislature passed a law last year allowing gay couples to enter civil unions; the law took effect Jan. 1.

Yeah, but why has the church allowed this travesty?

[Obadiah]

Robinson said the decision to enter into a civil union came after he received death threats...

The Left's old, "I-received-death-threats" canard. What? Did his mother call him and tell him she was going to "kill" him?

[yldstrk]

Selfish, can you just imagine what those daughters are going through?

[x_plus_one]

My friends at Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Kansas City have no knowledge of the dissolution of the Episcopal church. The topic is never brought up in church and no-one takes the internet seriously. The total collapse of TEC is happening while a bubble persists that states “all is well” within spheres of influence at Grace and Holy Trinity community. The Cathedral is not alone - most TEC parishes here ignore the outside world until it comes knocking at the door...

[megatherium]

Robinson was already openly gay when he was elected Bishop in New Hampshire. He had strong support from his congregation, who elected him because they thought he was a wonderful priest and would make a fine bishop.

[Augustinian monk]

Thanks for the visual aids to this story. /s

[ohioman]

“Robinson was already openly gay when he was elected Bishop in New Hampshire. He had strong support from his congregation, who elected him because they thought he was a wonderful priest and would make a fine bishop.”

If what you say is true, then his congregation is every bit as degenerate as Robinson. I guess they deserve each other.

[sionnsar]

Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.

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Humor: The Anglican Blue

Speak the truth in love. Eph 4:15

[Honorary Serb]

It seems that “Selfish Gene” Robinson is lying when he says that he entered into a “civil union” to protect his partner, etc., in the event of his assassination at Lambeth:

http://geoconger.wordpress.com/2007/12/21/gene-robinson-will-be-a-blushing-june-bride%E2%80%99-cen-122107/

“Selfish Gene’s” “union” is nothing more than another example of his continual grandstanding and exhibitionism.

Yesterday, in our (Orthodox) priest’s homily, he said that it is not legitimate to read into (eisegesis) the Holy Scriptures on the basis of the current reigning postmodern, secular, and cynical ethos. That is of course what happens, at the highest levels, in the Episcopal church, the ELCA, etc.

I put it a bit more bluntly in coffee hour after the Liturgy: The Episcopal church is now mainly about heresy, “gays”, and lawsuits!!!!

[redgolum]

Yesterday, in our (Orthodox) priest’s homily, he said that it is not legitimate to read into (eisegesis) the Holy Scriptures on the basis of the current reigning postmodern, secular, and cynical ethos. That is of course what happens, at the highest levels, in the Episcopal church, the ELCA, etc.

That is the opposite of what you will hear in most Protestant and Catholic pulpits in the US. My wife is Catholic, but I refuse to go to the little church here in town. Every sermon we have gone to has at least one reference to the war (and how all soldiers are evil), gays are ok, and that we need to be more "accepting".

Instead she goes to a parish in Illinois that while it is a bit odd (they raffle off a house and a car every year), the priest is at least pretty solid in his teaching.

[Honorary Serb]

Our priest’s homily was much richer than the little snippet that I posted above. It was the Trinity Sunday sermon that any Lutheran parish I belonged to needed to hear, but never did. Yesterday was the commemoration of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, who wrote the Nicene Creed and condemned Arianism. So an in-depth homily on the Holy Trinity was very much in order.

Some in the early Church read into the Scriptures on the basis of Neo-Platonism. Today, many read into the Scriptures on the basis of postmodern secularism. So that was the context. “Selfish Gene” and his disruptions are a symptom of that error, as is the feminist liturgy that helped push me out of the ELCA.

It is very sad that even many Roman Catholics are infected with that error, especially since many Lutherans see the Roman Catholic church as their refuge. But Luther, Melanchthon, and Andreae were trying to return Orthodoxy to the West. So I hope to see more Lutherans join me over here on this side of the Bosphorus.

Yes, the Orthodox churches have problems. (Even using the word “churches” rather than “Church” shows some of our problems!) But we have the fulness of the Christian faith, handed down from the Apostles and the Saints.

[Kolokotronis]

“(Even using the word “churches” rather than “Church” shows some of our problems!)”

Why do you say this? There have always been particular churches within The Church, HS. I’d hardly call that a problem.