Gene Robinson on Matthew Shepard, LGBT Christians and a Legendary Career

Bishop Gene Robinson didn't quite set out to be a trailblazer, but it's a legacy he's becoming increasingly comfortable with.

Bishop Robinson — who was consecrated as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church 20 years ago — sat down with veteran journalist Ted Koppel here at the Cathedral to reflect on his crusading career.

Bishop Robinson is a friend to this Cathedral, and is here frequently to preach, teach and help shape the Cathedral’s LGBTQ outreach. In late 2022, Bishop Robinson helped bless a spiritual portrait of Matthew created by noted iconographer Kelly Latimore.

Koppel asked Robinson directly what he thinks of the idea that one day he may be included in the church’s calendar of saints.

“I feel like the least saintly person ever; I know I’m not pure as the driven snow,” he said. “But in my life I’m happy with what I’ve done with what God has put in front of me.”

The two also talked about the 2018 service, here at the Cathedral, where Robinson interred the ashes of Matthew Shepard in the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea. Shepard was the gay Wyoming college student who was brutally murdered in 1998 simply for being gay; 20 years later, his family asked the Cathedral to inter his ashes and keep them safe from haters and vandalism.

“I was crying for all of my community who have died violently, punished for being who they are or loving who they loved,” he said. “I feel like my whole life took me to that moment, because I’ve been living my whole life with a foot in the church and a foot in the gay community, trying to explain one to the other, trying to get them to come together again, and for that two hours it happened.”