INTERFAITH ALLIANCE STATE OF BELIEF

RADIO JUNE 18, 2016

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: GENE ROBINSON
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[REV. DR. C. WELTON GADDY, HOST]:
The Rt. Rev. Bishop Gene Robinson was the first openly gay person
to serve as a bishop in the Episcopal Church, and he brings a
perspective to this story that few others can offer.
Gene, I really wanted to talk with you on the air this week and I thank
you for juggling your schedule to make that possible. Our
conversations on and off the air now span almost two decades. We've
talked in good times and bad times; sometimes laughing, sometimes
holding back tears. Sometimes baffled, sometimes angry. But with
you - and probably more with you than with me - in all of these times
you have been hopeful. Hope-full, actually. And this is one of the bad
times and sad times; and we need your voice, your thoughts, your
faith and your vision, and I can't thank you enough for being with us.
Welcome back to State of Belief.
[GR]: Thanks so much, Welton. It's always a great pleasure to be with
you, but especially at this really difficult time.
[WG]: Gene, as tragic as the attack on the gay nightclub in Orlando
was, has it been even more horrific because this happened during
Pride Month? I know thats something you must have thought about.

[GR]: Yeah you know, it's very interesting. So I was going to write a
piece for The Daily Beast about Pride, and to ask the question, quite
openly, do we need Pride month? Do we need Pride week or
weekend or a Pride parade anymore? Have we long passed the time
when that's really necessary? And so at our Pride parade here in
Washington DC on Saturday, I asked the question of a wide range of
people attending the parade; and I asked them what Pride meant to
them.
It was very interesting that the younger the person was that I asked,
the more likely they were to say, Oh, this is a party. This is a chance
for us just to get together and be who we are, and isn't it great? The
older the person was that I asked, the more I heard a political
message - and also a more somber message, which is: why is it that
we don't seem to know our own history? Why is it that during the
celebration of Pride, no one seems to remember the difficult journey it
took - the dangerous journey it took - to get where we are today? And
they were sort of ruing the fact that that our younger LGTB people just
don't seem to be aware of or to remember or to honor the difficult
road that has gotten us to where we are.
And then of course I wake up Sunday morning to this horrific news,
and I wished that I could interview all of those same people on
Sunday to see how their feelings about Pride changed from Saturday
to Sunday. And my guess is that those who only saw Pride as a party
were in a much more somber place; and understanding that this fight
isn't over, and the hatred against us has not ended. And that part of
being resilient in the present is remembering our past.
[WG]: Florida: Far away; a gay bar; people different from me. I
suspect these are things that a lot of people probably found
themselves thinking, and I think it's vitally important to break through
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that detaching distancing defense mechanism. Gene, you personally

have survived death threats and worse, and I wonder if you would be
willing to talk about what that was like - and the lasting impact of
encountering that kind of hate.
[GR]: You know, I always call it Incoming hate. It's like missiles that
gets fired against you, and it causes you to be ever on the alert. And
in some sense it means that there is a constant tension in your life,
right? That you don't take anything for granted and you try to be ready
for something awful coming your way which, oddly enough, is why
gay bars, for the LGBT community, have been places of refuge.
I mean, we can't even go home to our parents, usually. We are often
rejected by them or thrown out of what we used to call home, and so
we, over the last fifty years, have sought out safe places where, at
least for a few moments, you can let go of all that tension; that you
can expect this to be a place where you don't have to worry about the
incoming hate.
And so there was a kind of desecration of that safe place in this
Orlando shooting, and it's just such a vivid and horrifying reminder
that our safe places are few and far between. And it's very easy for
those of us who live in a very LGBT-accepting and affirming bubble to
forget that that is not true all over the United States, and certainly not
true in the world. And so I think the thing that I take from this is that
there is a threat even to those few safe spaces that we have, where
we can set aside that tension and just relax for a moment and take a
deep breath and cherish the moment without worrying about those
incoming missiles with hate warheads, if you please.
[WG]: I guess, Gene, I want to pursue that a little further - because I
understand what you said about through the experiences with hate
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that you've had, youve developed a caution or an alertness or the

tension of always being on the lookout. How do you do that - and I
ask you this because I see you doing it so well - how do you do that
without letting alertness become paranoia?
[GR]: Yeah, it's a great question. So you know, I don't know how a
person who is not a person of faith would answer this; but I can only
answer it as a person of faith. And just as a near-death experience
makes you think about your own mortality and to contemplate the
meaning of your life, it's also true that this kind of incoming hate, I
think - at least for me - threw me back on my dependence on God.
You know, one of the reasons I love the Exodus story from the Book
of Exodus in the Hebrew Scriptures is that wandering for forty years in
the desert by the ancient Hebrew people, I think, was God's way of
making sure that they remembered that if they got to the promised
land, it was because God wanted to take them there - not something
that they had done on their own.
And so what this kind of close encounter with danger, for me, did was
it was a constant reminder that whatever good I was able to do or
whatever good I seemed unable to do it was God who would get me
to a good and productive and positive and hopeful place; that without
God, conjuring up hope seems to me like an impossible task. And
with God, there is always hope. And on those days when I can't
believe it myself, I put my belief in God. And through God, I can be
somewhat hopeful. Because the world often gets it wrong; the Church
often gets it wrong; but God never gets it wrong. And and with God
we can do astounding things.

So for me, the experience of encountering that kind of hate

immediately threw me back onto God - and I literally could not have
done any part of what I've been able to do without God.
[WG]: Gene, when you were in the middle of all of that, how clear was
it to you that the anti-gay rhetoric that is so common in parts of our
culture played a role in somehow making it OK to target people like
you? Where does the permission for killing a person because of
sexual orientation where does that come from?
[GR]: Well, you know, I get that we have to be careful about drawing
lines and asserting cause and effect, right? I mean, that's a very
complicated and complex process. But I think we are kidding
ourselves as religious people - especially if we are people of one of
the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam - we have
built right into our sacred texts all the permission a shooter needs to
mow down fifty people. It's right there in our text.
And for instance, one of the things that I think is so disingenuous of
the conservative religious right is that they are very happy to quote
Leviticus to us about a man not lying with a man as with a woman but they're smart enough to know not to say the next sentence that
happens right after that verse in Leviticus which is, They must be put
to death. Now they don't say that, because they know that people
would be horrified by that. But that's what the next sentence says.
And so for Jews and Christians, Leviticus has it. Islam has it. And
someone wanting to commit this kind of a heinous hate crime, all they
have to do is read their their scriptures and they find all of the
permission they need. And then those passions get fueled by the
rhetoric that we hear from the religious right about how horrible, how
disgusting, how despicable LGBT people are; every time there is a
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bathroom bill against transgender people, it's just another cue to

people that that we are expendable; that shooting us is probably a
good thing in God's eyes; and and you'll probably be rewarded for it.
I think if we underestimate the power of our scriptures and our own
rhetoric to encourage this kind of behavior, to create the space for it to
happen and to fuel the passions that that are behind it - I think we are
deluding ourselves. And it's long past time that we take responsibility
for our scriptures and for our own rhetoric.
[WG]: I couldn't agree with you more. You know there are serious
conversations that have to happen - to actually continue happening around gun control; around mental health issues; around
radicalization. But do you see a connection between the ever-growing
trend of dehumanizing the other - of making mortal enemies of
people we disagree with - and this kind of deadly violence?
[GR]: Absolutely. The only thing I would add is that it's nothing new. In
fact, it's very, very old.
We see this throughout history where we come up with some sort of a
rationale to dehumanize the other - and once that person or that
group is dehumanized, then you can pretty much do anything to them
that you want to. We dont have to look any further than the Holocaust
for that, right? It began with the dehumanization of Jews and Gypsies
and homosexuals, as well. And once you dehumanize them, then
death camps are actually pretty easy to think through and to
implement.
We incarcerated the Japanese and Japanese Americans in this
country because we needed to dehumanize the Japanese because
they were our enemy in World War II. We had been attacked and so
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once we did that - the internment camps were easy to put together.
And once you dehumanize gay and lesbian, bisexual, transgender
people - and there are countless ways that that happens - then if
you're somewhat unstable, as this man, this shooter in Orlando,
seemed to be, it's really a very, very small step to wholesale
slaughter.
[WG]: Gene, doesnt that, in effect, make each and every one of us a
target - and therefore compels each and every one of us to do
everything we can do to reverse this troubling trend?
[GR]: Well, you would think so, wouldn't you? I mean, at the end of
the day, any of us can be dehumanized and targeted; but it does
seem that throughout history we have had the opportunity to focus on
different groups at different times over the history of humankind. We
happen to be at a place right now where, I think, that tends to be
LGBT people and people of color. I mean, it is astounding to me that
we can have so, so many reports on what happened in Orlando; we
have so many people commenting on it; we have so many people in
Congress addressing it; without ever saying that it was a gay club,
without ever saying LGBT, without ever saying that most of the
people - almost all of the people in that club - were people of color
and most of them were Hispanic.
There is something hideous about not naming the groups that have
been dehumanized and been killed, and I see that as contributing to
the hatred that led to this event: that not naming of the group that has
been dehumanized further dehumanizes us.
[WG]: Gosh. Gene, we're hearing, again, Let's not politicize this
tragedy. Tell us why that is so wrong to say.

[GR]: Well it is political! We don't get a choice about whether to

politicize it or not; it just simply is political. It's political because of the
gun laws or the lack of them in this country; it is political because the
LGBT community is a political group as well as a social grouping;
people of color are a political group; and so we simply cannot avoid
the reality that our social life - our common life together as a society
-is linked together and managed by politics. I mean, politics is nothing
but the sort of the work of the people, right? You know, it's a kind of
liturgy for the secular culture.
I think when you hear people saying, Oh, let's not politicize this, it
means they don't like the political ramifications of an event like this.
For instance, taking a look at the fact that you can't carry more than
three ounces of shampoo onto a flight, but you can walk in and buy
an assault rifle and use it without anybody ever even checking on
you. And that is insane, and that is political.
[WG]: I realize we inevitably find ourselves walking the thin line
between analysis and speculation, but youve spent a lifetime at the
intersection of LGBT identity and organized religion. So if a man like
the Orlando shooter finds himself in a struggle between questions
about his own sexuality and relentless anti-gay messages, combined
with mental instability - how likely do you think that goes a long way
toward understanding what happened last Sunday morning?
[GR]: You know, this was perhaps the most surprising thing to me and
to many of us in the LGBT community. You know, the violence against
us is nothing new: they've been killing us since time immemorial - for
centuries - and they're still trying to kill us. So that part of it is not new.
Yes, it was shocking, the sheer numbers and the sheer depth of it, but
it's no surprise that the violence is done against us. We have lived
with it for ever.
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But when it was revealed that many people in this club knew this guy
from his having been at this club many times over a series of years,
there was just a gigantic thud in my heart when I heard that. Because
the other thing that the gay community knows is that the first loathing
you have to get over as a gay or lesbian, bisexual or transgender
person is the self-loathing that we have been taught to feel. I mean,
we have learned from our religion all the things that everyone else
has learned, which is that we are an abomination in God's eyes. And
so we have had to go through the process of understanding that God
loves us, God values us, and that God's love for us is beyond
anything we can imagine.
This man if, in fact he was in this club that often over that period of
time - suggest that at least - and perhaps we will never know suggests that he himself was struggling with his own self-loathing.
And what we in the LGBT community know - or anyone who has a
small amount of psychological knowledge knows - that what you do
when there is something about yourself that you cannot embrace, that
you want to run from, that the typical thing you do is you project it on
to someone else and then you kill it, as a way of trying to kill it in
yourself. And frankly if that turns out to be true, I mean I think his 911
call claiming allegiance to ISIS was literally trying to throw us off the
trail from understanding that he himself was struggling with his own
sexual identity. and he wanted to be remembered as a martyr and as
a hero, not as a gay man who was so self-loathing that he killed and
wounded a hundred people who turn out to be in his own community.
How bloodcurdling is that?
[WG]: Gene, we've seen and heard diverse reactions to this tragedy.
Ive been impressed by some of what we've seen from the
international community in the ways they have identified with us in
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London and in Paris and other places. What have been your feelings
as you've watched different reactions to the tragedy?
[GR]: You know, it's hard to find the words to adequately express how
much it means to us to have these expressions of sympathy and
support. When you look at an event like this, theres kind of nothing
you can say. But when people show up at a candlelight vigil, it says
through their actions what people can't find the words to say, which is,
We stand with you. And I think what it means is that more and more
people are realizing that the only way we really put a stop to this is
not only to stand with the LGBT community, but to stand up for them.
We will know that we are making progress when we stop laughing at
gay jokes; when we stop believing the stereotypes; when we call
people out on their anti-gay feeling. I mean, there was a time in the
60s, in the in the great civil rights movement for African-Americans,
that people actually stopped joining country clubs that wouldn't let
Jews and blacks in. And we need to get to that place in America, that
more and more people - a majority of people - are simply unwilling to
participate in life with people who have that kind of hatred in their
hearts.
And this is all complicated, of course, for religious people because we
do have these texts of terror that are used against us, and we have
whole denominations of people who officially condemn us. And you
know last night on TV, Im watching a couple of independent church
pastors saying what a good thing it was for fifty of us to be killed in
Orlando, because after all, we're all pedophiles; it's just too bad that a
hundred or two hundred or five hundred weren't killed. That's being
actually said over the airwaves and on YouTube and in countless
places. And when are we going to stop pussyfooting around about
this kind of hatred? As religious people, it seems to me that we follow
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a Savior who stood up against injustice and was willing to take the
consequences.
[WG]: Gene, I don't want to be intrusive, ever, and if you don't want to
answer this you certainly don't have to. The reason I'm asking it is
because my experience over the last few days has been that a lot of
people, both gay and straight, are having trouble knowing what their
feelings are about this. And it occurred to me this morning that I'm
interested in knowing what you will write in your journal or what you
will say in your prayers or the notes that you will make to come back
and look at it again when you reflect on what has happened so far
this week.
[GR]: You know, I think the best advice I can give both my own
community and the world right now is: I think we need to be kind to
ourselves. And we need to give ourselves time to understand what
has happened to us and what it means.
We live in a 24-hour news cycle, and people want answers right now.
It's going to take a while to absorb the enormity of this and the
meaning of it. It's going to take a while to figure out what was
happening and why, and how religion is a part of it and how our
commitment to the common good is missing There are just all kinds
of avenues to follow. And so I think what I'm trying to do for myself
and what I think would be good advice for anyone else is: take your
time, and resist the deep desire to have all this anxiety go away.
Sometimes we avoid the anxiety by rushing to a conclusion or rushing
to an opinion or rushing to an explanation - because once we've
explained it, then we don't have to think about it anymore. And what
we need to do is to think about this a lot!

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And so I expect to feel differently about all this tomorrow and even
more differently the next day and the next day and the next. This is
going to take a while, and as a culture we cannot let this go with
today's news cycle. We have to sit with it and think about it and pray
about it for a good while before we're going to be able to get our arms
and our hearts and our minds around it. But I think that is the only
way we're actually going to benefit from this experience and do what
God is always capable of doing - which is bringing something very
very good out of something very very awful. That is the story of the
crucifixion and the resurrection: that God can always, always bring
something good out of something terrible.
[WG]: Gene, are there any final thoughts you want to share that I
haven't got to by asking you the right question or pushing you in a
direction? Are we leaving out anything you want to say?
[GR]: You know, your questions have been great; and and like I say, I
think maybe tomorrow different questions, different answers But for
today, I think what I would end by saying is: don't underestimate the
importance and the power of your standing with us in this terrible
time.
I, for one, feel on the edge. I am teary half of the day. It takes almost
nothing to start me crying again. And so seeing and hearing people
standing with us - not worrying about saying the right thing, just
standing with us in this terrible time. Saying the words gay and
lesbian, bisexual, transgender; saying gay bar; saying people
of color; saying Latino and Latina means you're standing with us
in this hour of need. And I just cannot say strongly enough how
important that is, and how much it means to us.

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[WG]: Well, I can't tell you how important it was to talk with you and
as always, the thoughts that you share that will get a lot of other
people thinking, and I hope some challenges as well. Gene, it's
always a pleasure to talk with you. This one seems very special, and I
thank you for being with us on State of Belief.
[GR]: Well, and thank you See, Im tearing up. Thank you for
standing with us for all these years.
[WG]: Talk to you soon, brother. Thank you.
[GR]: Thank you.

Rt. Rev. Bishop Gene Robinson

V. Gene Robinson is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American
Progress and Auburn Theological Seminary. He was elected bishop
of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire on June 7, 2003, having
served as Canon to the Ordinary (assistant to the bishop) for nearly
18 years. He was consecrated a bishop on All Saints Sunday,
November 2, 2003, and was invested as the Ninth Bishop of New
Hampshire on March 7, 2004.
Robinson graduated from the University of the South in 1969 with a
B.A. in American studies and history. In 1973 he completed the
M.Div. degree at the General Theological Seminary in New York, and
was ordained deacon and then priest, serving as curate at Christ
Church, Ridgewood, New Jersey.
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He is the co-author of three AIDS education curricula for youth and

adults, and has done AIDS work in the United States and in Africa
(Uganda and South Africa). He has also been an advocate for
antiracism training in the diocese and wider church. Robinson helped
build the Diocese of New Hampshires close working partnership with
the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, advocated for debt relief
for the worlds most impoverished nations, and lobbied for socially
responsible investment within and beyond the church.
He is a past member of the Board of the New Hampshire Endowment
for Health, which works for access to health care for the uninsured,
and he currently serves as a trustee of the Church Pension Fund. He
holds two honorary doctorates and has received numerous awards
from national civil rights organizations. His story is featured in the
2007 feature-length documentary, For the Bible Tells Me So, and his
book In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God (Seabury
Books, New York) was released in 2008.
Bishop Robinson has been particularly active in the area of full civil
rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Working at
the state, national, and international levels, he has spoken and
lobbied for equal protection under the law and full civil marriage
rights. He has been honored by many LGBT organizations for this
work, including the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal, the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, GLAAD, and the Equality
Forum.
Bishop Robinson was invited by Barack Obama to give the invocation
at the opening inaugural ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial on
January 18, 2009.

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In 2012, he authored God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay

Marriage, and a feature-length documentary on Bishop Robinsons
ministry, Love Free or Die, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival
that same year.
Robinson enjoys entertaining and cooking, gardening, music, and
theatre. He is the father of two grown daughters and the proud
grandfather of two granddaughters.

Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy

Author of more than 20 books, including First Freedom First: A
Citizens Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of
Church and State, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy led the national nonpartisan grassroots and educational organization Interfaith Alliance
for 16 years, retiring in 2014. Dr. Gaddy continues his work with the
Alliance as President Emeritus and Senior Advisor. He serves as
Pastor for Preaching and Worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in
Monroe, Louisiana.
In addition to being a prolific writer, Dr. Gaddy hosts the weekly State
of Belief radio program, where he explores the role of religion in the
life of the nation by illustrating the vast diversity of beliefs in America,
while exposing and critiquing both the political manipulation of religion
for partisan purposes and the religious manipulation of government
for sectarian purposes.
Dr. Gaddy provides regular commentary to the national media on
issues relating to religion and politics. He has appeared on MSNBCs

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The Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball, NBCs Nightly News and
Dateline, PBSs Religion and Ethics Newsweekly and The Newshour
with Jim Lehrer, C-SPANs Washington Journal, ABCs World News,
and CNNs American Morning. Former host of Morally Speaking on
NBC affiliate KTVE in Monroe, Louisiana, Dr. Gaddy is a regular
contributor to mainstream and religious news outlets.
While ministering to churches with a message of inclusion, Dr. Gaddy
emerged as a leader among progressive and moderate Baptists.
Among his many leadership roles, he is a past president of the
Alliance of Baptists and has been a 20-year member of the
Commission of Christian Ethics of the Baptist World Alliance. His past
leadership roles include serving as a member of the General Council
of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, President of Americans United
for Separation of Church and State, Chair of the Pastoral Leadership
Commission of the Baptist World Alliance and member of the World
Economic Forums Council of 100. Rev. Gaddy currently serves on
the White House task force on the reform of the Office of Faith Based
and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Prior to the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist
Convention (SBC), Dr. Gaddy served in many SBC leadership roles
including as a member of the conventions Executive Committee from
1980-84 and Director of Christian Citizenship Development of the
Christian Life Commission from 1973-77.
Dr. Gaddy received his undergraduate degree from Union University
in Jackson, Tennessee and his doctoral degree and divinity training
from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,
Kentucky.

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State of Belief Radio
State of Belief is based on the proposition that religion has a positive
and healing role to play in the life of the nation. The show explains
and explores that role by illustrating the vast diversity of beliefs in
America the most religiously diverse country in the world while
exposing and critiquing both the political manipulation of religion for
partisan purposes and the religious manipulation of government for
sectarian purposes.
Each week, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy offers listeners critical
analysis of the news of religion and politics, and seeks to provide
listeners with an understanding and appreciation of religious liberty.
Rev. Gaddy tackles politics with the firm belief that the best way to
secure freedom for religion in America is to secure freedom from
religion. State of Belief illustrates how the Religious Right is wrong
wrong for America and bad for religion.
Through interviews with celebrities and newsmakers and field reports
from around the country, State of Belief explores the intersection of
religion with politics, culture, media, and activism, and promotes
diverse religious voices in a religiously pluralistic world.

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