Gay churchman says God called him to be a bishop
By Elizabeth Day(Filed: 06/11/2005)

Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop in the Anglican church, claimed yesterday that he had been "called by God" to become a gay bishop.

Bishop Robinson's comments, which were made during a controversial visit to Britain, were dismissed as "spiritually dangerous" by a leading evangelical organisation.

The bishop, consecrated in the American Episcopalian diocese of New Hampshire, in the United States, two years ago, said that after 13 years of a conventional, heterosexual marriage he had "begun to deal with the fact that I just could not suppress this [his homosexuality] any longer".

"I've got to be honest," he said at a church service to mark the 10th anniversary of the gay and lesbian Anglican group, Changing Attitude, in central London. "I felt God was calling me out … God is always calling us to a place of integrity."

Later, he told the congregation that God had also "pursued" him to become a bishop, flying in the face of the traditional Anglican doctrine that does not allow the ordination of practising homosexuals. The rest at Connecticut Six