Gay Bishop Gene Robinson Excluded From HBO's Coverage of "We Are One" Presidential Inauguration Concert

Gays and lesbians across the United States have something else to be upset about. It seems that HBO, who provided and sponsored Sunday's big Lincoln Memorial show billed as the "We Are One" concert, which intended to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama with a spirit of unity, forgot one thing. Bishop Gene Robinson's invocation. I watched the broadcast on HBO and I did not see his invocation. I have to wonder if this slight was intentional. Robinson is the "first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop in a major Christian denomination." My position on his vocation is better left for another commentary. He was on hand to deliver an opening prayer to the event, but this prayer went unseen by anyone watching on HBO.

Okay, so the finger-pointing has begun. A spokesperson for HBO stated that decisions regarding the timing and presentation of Robinson's remarks were made by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, and that Robinson was "not a part of our show from the start." Robinson appeared minutes before the 2:30pm start time of the concert coverage. HBO's response to the matter has been uniform.

HBO comes to this controversy without any sort of significant reputation for being a network or a workplace hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. In fact, the network is responsible for airing the drama Six Feet Under, which depicted gays in complex relationships unflinchingly. The Obama camp, on the other hand, has courted controversy already with the decision to include in the inauguration Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren, a supporter of Proposition 8 in California. The appearance of a snub in the case of Bishop Robinson has successfully raised the temperature among Democratic activists and in the liberal blogosphere, where outrage is being pointed mostly at the incoming administration and the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Personally, I am a little ticked off about it too. Why invite the bishop if you are going to choose not to have him on live? It's just plain wrong. You can't give the appearance that you care about gays and lesbians and then do the opposite in public. I don't share many of his positions, but I feel that he was deliberately slighted by someone--HBO or the Obama Inaugural Committee or both.