Opening Doors :
continued from p. 1

20 minutes late with a choir of handbell ringers;
it lasted for 3 hours. Parishes processed in from
the Zamboni door with their banners and walked
halfway around the arena before taking their
seats in the sections above me. After various ecu-
menical and family guests, the bishops processed
by, led by a fluttering, floating representation of a
dove. with Gene Robinson in their midst. His
presence was so unassuming that I wasn't sure it
was him until the congregation behind me started
cheering. '

Dressed in a simple cream-colored
robe with a hood, he turned and smiled at the
parish folk before walking over to his chair, fac-
ing Presiding Bishop and Episcopal Primate
Frank Griswold and the half-dozen senior bishop
co-consecrators (including the retired Barbara
Harris, the first woman consecrated as bishop,
resplendent in a turquoise blue cape and miter
setting off her coffee-with-milk skin and white
hair). Another 50 bishops, dressed in white albs
under sleeveless dark orange cassocks, sat in
ranks to the left and right.

At the center of the ceremony, Bishop
Griswold asked for testimonials, an essentially
pro-fonna request. Letters and documents attest-
ing to Gene’s baptism, ordination, election as
bishop by New Hampshire Episcopalians and
confirmation by the national convention were
produced and read.

Then Griswold asked another pro-
forma question: “If any of you know any reason
why we should not proceed, let it now be made
known." He tempered that request with a cau-
tionary discourse. “You seem to be a demonstra-
tive co_ngregation,” he said with a smile before he
went on to caution those present against respond-
ing in any way, yay or nay, to the statements of
objectors.

There were three who spoke, some
with clumps of supporters who stood behind
them.

The first was a Father Earle Fox of \
Pennsylvania. He said, “It breaks my heart to be
here,” and went on, “We are not to judge persons,

Newly consecrated Bishop Co-adjutor Gene Robinson (left) offering a blessing.

but we are required to judge behavior.” He then
began detailing the sexual acts of gay men based
on unidentified research (the third and last of his
statements was “9l percent engage in rimming,
which is touching of the anus ...”). Bishop
Griswold interrupted firmly: “Father Fox! I think
you could spare us these details and get to the
substance.” “You know what I’m getting at,” Fox
returned. “Yes,” Griswold answered drily, “I
think we do.”

The second objector was Meredith
Harwood, from Ashland, New Hampshire, who ,
said that if the consecration were completed, it
would “break God’s heart.” She asked, “How
dare this diocese carry out this cowardly act of
capitulation to an elite _culture?" The third was an
assistant bishop from Albany, New York, bring-
ing a letter from 36 dissenting bishops. '

No other objectors spoke, and those
who had - and their supporters — quickly left the
arena.

The Presiding Bishop said the sub-
stance of the objections had already been aired,

and the consecration would continue.

Bishop Griswold asked us all to stand
and said, “Is it your will to consecrate Gene as
your bishop?” The assembled spoke loudly and
in unison: “THAT IS OUR WILL!" “Will you
uphold Gene as your bishop?" “WE WILL!"

The ceremony went on, with prayers
and scriptures and a sermon from retiring New
Hampshire Bishop Douglas Theuner that was
relaxed, yet pointed. With ironic humor Theuner
compared all the berobed ecclesiasts present to
the scribes and Pharisees with whom the Biblical
Jesus was so displeased, evoking gentle laughter.

He told Gene that he was a “symbol of
unity as no one else among us can be." When he
said, “Gene, your presence in the Episcopate will

bring among us an entire group of Christians who ‘-

have heretofore been unacknowledged," sus-
tained applause rang out again.

There were questions asked of and
answered by the bishop-elect. The bishops gath-
ered round for the laying on of hands. Gene was
named the ninth bishop of the Diocese of New

Hampshire.

When he was vested by his family —
including his grown daughters and his partner
Mark Andrew —— with stole, chasuble (a cape—like' '
outer robe, his made of gold-colored cloth lined »
in kelly green and patterned with green and red
leaves), miter (pointed hat), shepherd’s crook and
all, the applause in the hall was sustained for a
full five minutes.

“You cannot imagine,” said newly con-
secrated Bishop Coadjutor V. Gene Robinson as
his voice cracked with emotion, “what an honor
you have conferred upon me. I want to remind
you of what you already know: that there are
wonderful, faithful Christian people for whom
this is a moment of great pain and confusion.”
Any who felt the need to leave the church over

' his ordination, he said, were “always welcome
' back.” And he urged those assembled to use the

worldwide attention his consecration had generat-
ed — “Theeyes of the world are upon us, we
couldn‘t buy this kind of attention" — for God.
His firstjob as Bishop Coadjutor (the
bishop who works with a soon-to.-retire bishop ‘
whom he will replace) was to celebrate commun-
ion, serving the bishops bread and wine as teams
of co-celebrants spread out into the stands. A
The new. bishop was applauded and

cheered again during the recessional, as the bish- J’ 
ops in their many-colored robes disappeared ‘ 
- V ~r ';li’l|J

through the Zamboni door. ' ’

Outside the arena, the dozen or so
Phelps-folk and their allies were still there in the"-7
evening darkness, shouting about hell and Sodom :
and Gomorrah. But now they were nearly
drowned out from across the sidewalk by ten
times their number of students from the universi-
ty, some guys wearing shirts that said “gay? fine
by me," cheering as loudly as they could and
applauding everyone who left the consecration, ~
thanking us, wishing us peace, holding signs that
said “God is Love” and “Remember Matthew
Shepard — Say No to Hate for UNH.” They didn’t
have to do that, they had no formal structure
writing the script, they just did it, and they kept it
up for a very long time. V '

Eulan Bear identifies as a skeptic regarding
organized religion, following a traditional New
England Protestant clrildlrood.

 

Gay Marriage
continued from p. 1

two attorneys who litigated Vermont’s

. Baker v. State case said in a statement,

“Massachusetts has built on the prece-
dent set by Vermont. Now it’s up to
the Massachusetts legislature to take
the next step, and confirm that the only
way to provide true equality for its gay
and lesbian citizens is to simply open
up the marriage laws to gay couples.”
Echoing the groan of other

Vermont pro-civil union political
activists, Murray cautioned, “It’s likely
that Massachusetts is in for a battle
just like the one that we fought in
2000, both in the legislature and in the
subsequent campaign season. Gays and

lesbians here in Vermont must to do
everything we can to support
Massachusetts’ fight for full equality."

“This is a historic day for
lesbian and gay couples in
Massachusetts who until today have
only dreamed of being able to get mar-
ried," said David Buckel, Lambda
Legal’s Marriage Project Director.
“The court has said explicitly that civil
marriage can’t be limited to different-
sex couples. The state legislature will
now look at how — not whether —
Massachusetts couples will have equal
marriage rights.

“This isn’t a chess game —
today’s ruling is about real people’s
lives, hopes and dreams,” Buckel said.
Lambda Legal is litigating for mar-
riage rights on behalf of seven New

Jersey couples.
Presidential candidate
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) wasted
no time in issuing a statement in sup-
port of the ruling and encouraging the
legislature to uphold equal rights for
lesbian and gay couples. ‘-‘While I con-
tinue to oppose gay marriage,” he
wrote, ‘‘I believe that today’s decision
calls on the Massachusetts state legis-
lature to take action to ensure equal
protection for gay couples. These pro-
tections are long overdue."
“Our community and the

people of Massachusetts now face a
bruising political struggle. We have to
make sure that the ‘appropriate action’
taken by the state legislature is to
ensure the freedom to marry for all its
citizens, not some attempt to create

some kind of separate and fundamen-
tally unequal system,” wrote National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force Director
Matthew Foreman. “We’ve learned
from painful experience that court vic-
tories are incomplete — and sometimes
hollow — until they are translated into
statute and fairly implemented.”
Foreman likewise cautioned
pro-gay marriage activists in 1
Massachusetts and nationwide to brace
for a “vicious, demonizing, and dehu-
manizing assault that is likely to be
undertaken by anti-gay extremists.”
“Today, the Massachusetts
Supreme Court made history,” said
Elizabeth Birch, executive director of
the Human Rights Campaign. “This
ruling will never interfere with the
right of religious institutions — church-

es, synagogues and mosques — to
determine who will be married within
the context of their respective religious
faiths. This is about whether gay and
lesbian couples in long—term, commit-
ted relationships will be afforded the
benefits, rights and protections afford-
ed other citizens to best care for their
partners and children. This is good for
gay couples and it is good for
America.”

The Human Rights
Campaign signed onto a “friend of the
court” brief in Goodridge. A variety of
other civil rights organizations, reli-
gious groups, child welfare experts,
family and legal historians and others
also either signed or filed briefs of
their own in favor of extending civil
marriage laws to same-sex couples. V.

{-