Source: Politics<\/p>\n
CONCORD, N.H. \u2014 In 2008, when the Right Rev. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire was excluded from a global Anglican gathering because of his sexuality, Desmond Tutu, who died Sunday<\/a>, came to his defense.<\/p>\n \u201cGene Robinson is a wonderful human being, and I am proud to belong to the same church as he,\u201d Tutu wrote in the foreword to a book Robinson published that year.<\/p>\n Robinson, who in 2003 became the U.S. Episcopal Church\u2019s first openly gay bishop, said Sunday he has been trying to live up to those words ever since.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was quite surreal because I was taking grief from literally around the world,\u201d he said in a phone interview. \u201cThere was probably at that time, and maybe still, no one better known around the world than Desmond Tutu<\/a>. It was an astounding gesture of generosity and kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n Tutu, South Africa\u2019s Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist for racial justice, died at age 90<\/a>. He was an uncompromising foe of apartheid<\/a>, South Africa\u2019s brutal regime of oppression against its Black majority, as well as a leading advocate for LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, with gay marriage, it\u2019s hard to remember how controversial this was, and for him to stand with me at the very time I was being excluded … it completely floored me,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n In the foreword to Robinson\u2019s book, Tutu also apologized for the \u201ccruelty and injustice\u201d the LGBTQ community had suffered at the hands of fellow Anglicans.<\/p>\n Tutu, Robinson said, used his own experience of oppression to understand and empathize with others.<\/p>\n \u201cHe used that as a window into what it was like to be a woman, what it was like to be someone in a wheelchair or for someone to LGBTQ or whatever it was,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was the thing that taught him to be compassionate.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson recalled the way Tutu\u2019s laugh rippled across crowds of thousands as well as a private moment when they prayed together in the seminary Robinson graduated from in New York.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was nobody in pain that he wasn\u2019t concerned about, whether that pain was a physical ailment of some kind or a mental illness or something to do with cruelty or degradation. It pained him,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cTo sit in the room and hear him praying about those people was about as close to knowing the heart of God as I ever expect to know. I mean, I don\u2019t even need to know more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson served as the ninth bishop of New Hampshire until his retirement in early 2013 and later as a fellow at the Center for American Progress. Now 74, he recently retired as the vice president of religion and senior pastor at the Chautauqua Institution.<\/p>\n