Obama Invites Bishop Gene Robinson to pray at Inaugural Event

President-elect Obama has invited openly-gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire to give the opening prayer at the inauguration ceremony this Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial .

I am sure there will be many people who will be discussing why Bishop Robinson was given this opportunity, and if the choice of Robinson was meant to counter-balance Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the Inauguration Day invocation, and the political implications thereof, but—for me personally—this is a huge step toward healing the hurt in my heart caused by even the inadvertent message sent to me by this man who will be President, and in whom I have placed so much of his nearly-trademarked hope, that I must yet again defer my dream of equality for the sake of political expediency.

I know that I’ve made my feelings about Rick Warren known here, and I won’t go into it any further, but I just wanted to say—in the same place where I made my displeasure over Warren known—how much I appreciate my new President hearing the concerns of so many GLBT people—and our wonderful, loving allies--about the kind of message Obama’s choice of Rick Warren was sending to those of us who had genuinely come to believe we could expect better from this President.

All this reminds me of a line I once heard or read somewhere that seems somehow apropos:

There is no sound, no voice, no cry in all the world that can be heard until someone listens.

Thank you, soon-to-be-President Obama for not just hearing us, but listening to us.