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Well That's How These Things Happen
08/09/2003

I was all set to do a little more work and then head off to bed. Then I bumped into a post by Jeff Jarvis taking on Lileks for speaking out against the ascendancy of a gay Episcopalian Bishop — not because Gene Robinson is gay, but because he left a wife and two young daughters (8 and 4) to "be gay."

Jarvis links to Mike of Begging to Differ, who offers up a brief biography of Robinson's "real story." After showing that he is, somehow, surprised that a writer would be "hyperbolic" who spends hundreds of words a day discussing such things as shampoo bottles in such a way as to make the decision between them cosmic, Mike essentially admits that he merely disagrees with Lileks's basic assumptions and returns to the one question that has become the Morally Superior Cudgel of Refused Consideration in our day: "Who are you to judge?" (Only, of course, Mike bolds it to emphasize that Lileks best shut his trap.)

One could answer Mike's question pretty simply — for one thing, Lileks is a man who is still married to his wife — but I prefer to comment along the lines of Andrea Harris in Jarvis's comment box: "This event also illustrates that gay public officials are fast becoming the in-crowd's new cuddly toy." In a related post, Andrea expands on that aspect of the tale, suggesting that "there's a movie script in [Robinson's biography] just waiting for that rumored new gay cable channel."

When I read the bishop's backstory — of which Mike gives several variations that all obvious come from the same source(s) — my first thought was, "I wouldn't dare write this as fiction!" The story sets off my credulity alarm so dramatically that I almost feel as if I'm allowing myself to be duped believing that it's true. (Of course, it is almost certainly true in some or many ways, but that doesn't diminish the point.)

Robinson, the son of Kentucky tobacco sharecroppers, had nearly died at birth, with the doctor asking for a name to put on birth and death certificates. Thinking it inconsequential and having expected a girl, his father gave him a girl's name (Vicky Imogene). Gene learned early that "Suicide was something we thought the good homosexuals did." He then had the after-school-special moment of the smuggled Playboy not giving him quite the reaction that he knows is expected.

Then the story zips through the everyman parts of his youth, addressing sexuality only in the context of his struggles to suppress his true desires. In his early-twenties New York City seminary days, as Robinson puts it, "I was able to admit a little more to myself my attraction to men." Next big scene: Robinson "fell in love" with his future wife and confessed that "his significant past relationships had been with men."

Stop!

We didn't get that episode! Could this indicate a little cuddlyization? I wouldn't presume to guess, but if I were attempting to give somebody the full gloss treatment, this is a detail that I would have handled with a similarly casual retrospective touch. The same thing is true of the "drifting apart" scene:

In 1985 Robinson began examining his life choices for reasons that he still cannot explain, even to himself. His best guess is that he was headed toward 40. As he had feared, his doubt about his sexuality "reared its ugly head."

"I think one of the questions that comes during middle age is am I living my life the way I want to live it for the rest of my life?" he said. "If not, perhaps I ought to think about changing it now because I don't have as much time left as I used to."

The prospect filled him with excitement and dread.

Robinson believed he and his wife could find deeper love with other people, but he had never imagined living away from his kids - and he hadn't resolved the matter with God.

I.e.: midlife crisis. What follows are mushy readings of such unambiguous passages as Romans 1:26-27:

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

"To Robinson, the passages condemned rape and gay sex with prostitutes or children - not consensual gay sex." This, I can only imagine, he takes from the few of twenty-five English translations of St. Paul that leave so much as a toe-hold of ambiguity. But it turns out not to matter, ultimately, because the passages don't apply to him: "they'd been written before anyone had imagined the sort of committed, monogamous gay life he desired." The Bible's just a "text," after all, and it can mean whatever we want it to mean in the context of our modern perspective. Right?

Whatever the judgment on that question, it's that "deeper love with other people" suggestion that I keep coming back to. Are there people in the midst of midlife crises who don't wonder whether they could find "deeper" love with somebody other than the person to whom they've been married for better than a decade? This brings us back to Lileks and the core of his argument:

There's a word for people who leave their children because they don't want to have sex with Mommy anymore: selfish.

Perusing the reports of current events in the glistening life story of Gene Robinson, it is that concept that comes up again and again. The first whiff drifts by when we learn that both of his daughters' college entrance essays were about their father's leaving — life-affirming most likely, but still, about him and what he did. This blossoms into a truly frightening comment from young Ella, now a woman of 21 (emphasis added):

There were some people who looked at our family situation and really judged it. But I learned early on how important it is to be yourself, no matter the consequences.

This is, of course, a lesson that our culture teaches children as the Golden Rule of modern life. Indeed, Rev. Robinson suggests that he might have re-learned it from children, who "will not up with B.S. for long." (By "B.S.," does he mean his marriage?) And that inconsequential word — "consequences" — comes up again elsewhere in this latter day fairytale:

"I love you, Gene," Bishop Keith Ackerman of Quincy, Ill., said at a hearing Friday. "But this unprecedented action will separate us from the rest of the holy, catholic, apostolic church.... We cannot so significantly depart from church teachings and not expect serious consequences."

It may be that the Robinsons were extremely lucky and really did manage a divorce, for the reason of homosexuality, without harming their daughters. Robinson may indeed be one of that very small minority of homosexuals who desire to live according to the moral norms for heterosexuals, only homosexually. Indeed, he may be a living embodiment of the fashionable fictional device of the gay representative of morality for heterosexuals' benefit. Frankly, although I'll assume the best, I don't trust the glossy media representations of Robinson's life, past or present. As I said, they are too perfect even for fiction, and they conspicuously leave out the dirt on which the media could be trusted to concentrate under other circumstances. And this gives me the most pause of all:

"If people leave, it's because they choose to leave," he said. "I'm carrying a whole lot on my shoulders right now. I can't carry the whole future of the entire Anglican Communion."

But what if you do, Bishop Robinson? What if you do?

ADDENDUM:
This didn't fit in the flow of this post, but I wanted to juxtapose two lines (the second from here):

"I want to be a good bishop," he said. "Not the gay bishop."

"The corporate symbol of the episcopate becomes a fuller symbol when someone gay or lesbian is in those ranks."

So he doesn't want to be considered "the gay bishop," but he does want to fill the gay bishop slot that he thinks should exist within the episcopate.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 01:57 AM EST

5 comments

"Be myself no matter the consequences." Dang, I didn't read everything and I missed this juicy quote. Damn the consequences and full speed ahead! One could say that there's many a tyrant, mass murderer, or criminal of any stripe whose credo that is.

Andrea Harris @ 08/09/2003 08:26 AM EST

Keith Ackerman, before he became an Episcopalian bishop, used to be rector at the Episcopalian church in Charleroi PA, about five or six miles from where I live. I never met him, though. I do recall that the Byzantine priest in that town once told me that the Episcopalians there are so Anglo-Catholic that they reserve the "Blessed Sacrament" in their church. Or, at the least, they did when Ackerman was there.

ELC @ 08/09/2003 12:18 PM EST

At any rate, I don't see how the "cuddly" backstory is supposed to change one's opinion of the matter, one way or the other - you believe that keeping one's vow is what matters, or you believe that "following your bliss" is what matters. Rev Robinson just sounds like another tedious '70s retread to me - is it something special that one should be shaken up by impending middle-age, own with dismay that one might've made wrong choices along the line, or struggle with doubts and wayward desires? Welcome to the human condition, bub.

I, too, was creeped out by the daughter's comment. Guess she'd be cool with her own possible future mate "being himself", no matter what the consequences to her?

Moira Breen @ 08/09/2003 12:44 PM EST

How is "being yourself" defined? Do your desires always indicate God's plan for you?

Davey's mommy @ 08/11/2003 02:42 AM EST

"He then had the after-school-special moment of the smuggled Playboy not giving him quite the reaction that he knows is expected."

I had a childhood friend who "came out of the closet" some years ago. As we sat in my living room he started to describe to me how he came to realize he was gay. As we talked, he related several past instances that "hinted" at his "true sexuality." Then it dawned on me, he had rewritten his past!

"Excuse me," I told him. "You can claim your homosexuality all you want, but leave me out of it."

"What are you talking about..."

"I was there, dude! When you rewrite your history you're rewriting part of mine and IT DIDN"T HAPPEN THAT WAY."

Needless to say I lost a friend I'd known since we were toddlers.

Sparkey @ 08/12/2003 02:26 PM EST