Misogyny and Gay Rights: ¨Part of the resistance to gay equal rights is ultimately about the beginning of the end of patriarchy¨ Bishop V.G. Robinson

Bishop V. Gene Robinson, Out/Partnered Gay Bishop, The Episcopal Church, Diocese of New Hampshire, U.S.A.

Gay Religion Blogspot Editor's note: The following article originally ran in The Blade's Nov. 14, 2007, issue. We are reprinting it here as part of our Jan. 23 Politics & Religion special issue. Robinson recently gave one of the invocations at the opening celebration of President Obama's inauguration. read it all, click here:

Middle Collegiate Church's annual Pride and Passion conference explored the volatile intersection of homosexuality and theology. The East Village church's two-day event, which included workshops and lectures, couldn't have been more timely. The same week in November, thousands of New Yorkers protested a local Mormon church and rallied against California's gay marriage ban Proposition 8.

As the first openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church, New Hampshire's V. Gene Robinson knows first-hand the religious wrath often directed at the LGBT community. His 2003 election has split the national church.

"Even nonreligious people have to deal with religion on the issue of LGBTI rights [the 'I' stands for 'intersex']," he said. "In no other civil rights movement that I know of has scripture played such a roll. We ignore that at our own peril."

Middle Collegiate Church—part of the Reformed Church of America—has long embraced its LGBTI congregants. "We also have classes about human sexuality," said the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, the church's senior minister. "We talk about faith and sexuality because we think it's a gift from God."

At Middle Collegiate Church, Robinson delivered a talk titled "Dancing in the Temple: Why Religion Matters in Our Fight for Equality," and he engaged in an hour-long Q&A session and also spoke with The Blade. The following excerpts—in his words—are highlighted topics from the bishop's exchanges.

Misogyny and Gay Rights. Part of the resistance to gay equal rights is ultimately about the beginning of the end of patriarchy. The connections between misogyny and heterosexism are astounding. The classic defense against gay bashing is, "He made a pass at me." Can you imagine if we locked up every man who ever made a pass at a woman? But if you treat another man as a woman, well, we take a baseball bat to your head.

A very common thing in the ancient world when one army conquered another was raping and pillaging. But the raping was of another man—one of the most degrading things you could do to a man was treat him like a woman.

In the Leviticus passage [thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind], the sin seems to be for the man to allow himself to be treated as a woman. There seems to be evidence that the insertive partner did not receive the same punishment.

Homophobia vs. Heterosexism. I almost never use the term homophobia. Most people understand phobias as fears. And a lot of people say they don't fear us at all—they just hate us. What we are really talking about is heterosexism. Let's review what an "–ism" is: prejudice plus power. Racism is when white people set the system up to benefit themselves at the expense of others. What I like about using the word heterosexism is that it puts responsibility where it belongs.

The Opposite of Love. One of the principles I operate on is that the opposite of love is not hate, it's fear. I try to remember that [anti-gay people] are coming from a place of fear. The more hateful they sound, the more fearful they are. What I try to do with detractors is figure out what it is they're afraid of.¨

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