(source)

Gene Robinson, the 60 year old, openly gay bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church is getting married in June 2008 (not new news to some). Elected as bishop in 2003, Gene is no stranger to controversy. And in his new autobiography, “In the Eye of the Storm,’ he stirs some up, once again (much to our delight… we enjoy controversy and pushing the envelope when it comes to religious doctrine).

Here are excerpts from his book:

“”I always wanted to be a June bride.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew there’d be trouble. I’d just delivered an hour-long lecture on the relationship between religion and public discourse, and why religious fervour over homosexuality plays such a large and negative role in the securing of full civil rights for gay people.

“During the question-and-answer period, someone asked me about the forthcoming civil union between me and Mark, my partner of 20 years. The audience had been welcoming and sympathetic, full of laughter and understanding, and for one moment, I forgot that the C-SPAN cameras were rolling and that every word I said would be parsed by my critics. Within hours, those eight words had made it around the world, thanks to conservative bloggers and the magic of the internet.

“No context; nothing about the preceding hour of carefully constructed comments; nothing about my defence of - and love for - the Scriptures; nothing about the loving God to whom I constantly pointed. Just this one sentence.

“Surely no one thinks that I’ll don a wedding gown and wear flowers in my hair. But I suspect that a lot of people are uncomfortable with me using the word “bride” - a word associated with women as property - to describe a man…. Is calling myself a “bride” offensive because it relegates a “privileged” man to the status of a woman? I’ll be the first to admit that it would have been better if I’d never uttered those eight words - not because they aren’t true, but simply because they gave the conservative forces something else to use against me. It was a stupid thing to say, and I should have known better.

“We’ve dealt with all the ramifications of being a gay couple in our culture. All the protections that exist for heterosexual couples were not automatically available to us. At considerable cost, we legally contracted some of these… The kind of protections that became instantly available to Britney Spears - who, on a lark, decided one night in Las Vegas to get married - are not available to Mark and me despite 20 years of love and fidelity.”

You can purchase it through Amazon.