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What If Bishop Robinson Is the Representative?
08/07/2003

Bishop Robinson was manifestly the wrong representative for gay advocates to put forward for this latest advance. The problem is that he isn't just objectionable because he is a homosexual, not even just because he is a "practicing" one. Even James Lileks, whom I've recently had cause to (umm) rebut on the issue of gay marriage, objects to Robinson. The whole thing is worth quoting, but here's the beginning (emphasis in the original):

This story has irritated me from the start, and it has nothing to do with Rev. Robinson's sexual orientation. The guy left his wife and kids to go do the hokey-pokey with someone else: that's what it’s all about, at least for me. Marriages founder for a variety of reasons, and ofttimes they're valid reasons, sad and inescapable. But "I want to have sex with other people" is not a valid reason for depriving two little girls of a daddy who lives with them, gets up at night when they're sick, kisses them in the morning when they wake. There's a word for people who leave their children because they don't want to have sex with Mommy anymore: selfish. I'm not a praying man, but I cannot possibly imagine asking God if that would be okay. Send them another Dad, okay? Until you do I'll keep my cellphone on 24/7, I promise.

Who are you to judge? is the standard response, and I quote Captain James T. Kirk when asked the same question by Kodos the Executioner: who do I have to be? I'll tell you this: my nightmare is losing my daughter. The idea of leaving her on purpose is inconceivable, and I don't care if Adriana Lima drove up the driveway in a '57 BelAir convertible, tossed me the keys and asked me to drive her to Rio, it ain't gonna happen. I made a promise when I married my wife, and I made another when we had our daughter. It's made me rather cranky on the subject of men who don't stick around. They're letting down the side. They're reverting to type. They're talking from their trousers.

An interesting thing happens as a result of Lileks's (too) even-handed treatment of homosexuality and heterosexuality: he skirts something important when he suggests that the Reverend would not likely have been held up as the avatar of a better society to come had he left his family for another woman. Perhaps this is the intellectual and social escape hatch from this mess. Has Lileks considered — has America considered — the possibility that the elevation of a man who is not only objectionable because of his gender preference indicates that the other stuff is not an incidental component of the culture that he is helping to usher into the mainstream?

Yes, the gay guy on Melrose Place was presented as the celibate moral center of an apartment complex of lustful straights. Yes, the gay neighbors in American Beauty were healthy and professional — in stark contrast to the screwed up "nuclear" family and the psychotic military family next door. But has America considered that this is not the reality that its policies must address?

To be sure, it is inconceivable that all homosexuals are consciously subversive. Many just want to be happy with the lives that they have been given. They are, after all, living within the same culture as the rest of us. There is also certainly a minority of homosexuals who want to structure their lives and relationships in exact accordance with the healthy norms for heterosexuals, only with others of the same sex. (Although, if only 10% of committed homosexuals value monogamy, that minority is likely small indeed.) And even those who are on some level aware of the larger movement of which they are the tip ought to be addressed as fellow human beings in every other capacity of their humanity. However, we cannot afford to make taboo the discussion of the actual circumstances and implications of our push for "tolerance."

Lileks wants to be fair and respectful. Many others — from blogger Noah Millman, who opposes gay marriage, to local talk radio host Dan Yorke, who supports it — are grappling with the fact that they have gay friends and relatives whom they like and respect. I sympathize with that, and I certainly realize that sliding into bigotry is a potential danger of the perspective that I advocate. However, we simply cannot afford to cup our hands around our eyes so that we see only the smiling faces of our gay friends and coworkers. It may be more difficult, and it may cause irreparable rifts in our personal lives, but the danger is certain and drastic if we shirk our responsibility to take a broader view and, thereby, define and discuss the movement as a whole.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 11:32 AM EST

2 comments

I posted something along these lines a few days ago. Not only did Robinson leave his family I actually heard him say (during a TV interview) that GOD called him out of his marriage to live as a gay man. My conclusion was that the days of saying the "devil made me do it" have given way to "God made me do it."

Stephen @ 08/07/2003 02:02 PM EST

We totally agree that the main objection here is that his adultery should be the issue concerning his unfitness to be bishop, not his homosexuality. He broke multiple commandments (The ten Commandments) which, as you have noted, would not be acceptable had he been heterosexual. What happened to his second daughter? Why is she never mentioned? We discussed this with our Episcopal priest who brused off the objection, saying his children were adults! However the one daughter was 8 years old at the time.

Larry and April McCormack @ 08/24/2003 12:56 PM EST