"Long before the 'religious right' was objecting to abortions, Planned Parenthood was objecting to the violence against women when butchers were performing all the abortions here in America," Robinson said.

"Yours is amazing history -- and I hope you are as proud as you should be."

He also stated that America treats everyone wrong -- except straight white men. "I am so grateful for this experience of being gay. It has taught me so much," the bishop said. "It's my little window into what it must be like to be a woman, to be a person in a wheelchair, to be a person of color."

Robinson said that is why homosexuals and abortion advocates must unite and fight to bring about what he calls a "holy change" in the nation. The two movements, he said, will always be linked together as they battle to bring about that change.

Prior to the breakfast, Planned Parenthood chaplain Dr. Ignacio Castuera had described Robinson as an "inspiring religious leader and a compelling moral and ethical force in the struggle for reproductive rights, human rights, and sexual equality." Robinson's work in the areas of mentoring and "healthy sexuality," he added, has "shaped generations of believers who share his progressive spiritual values."

Evidence of Close Alliance

Robert Knight is the director of the Culture and Family Institute, an arm of Concerned Women of America. Knight says Robinson's speaking appearance is not surprising, considering the strong alliance that exists between the abortion and homosexual movements.

"A lot of people wonder why homosexuals would be interested in the abortion issue at all, but it really all comes together in one place," he explains, "and that is the challenge to God's plan for the family and for sex as exclusively something that brings a husband and a wife together and produces children. The abortion movement and the homosexual movement have long supported each other."

The CFI director notes that the former head of another pro-abortion group, the National Abortion Rights Action League, recently gave an award to former Vermont governor Howard Dean for his pro-homosexual activism. Dean presided over that state's establishment of same-sex "civil unions" while he was governor. Knight contends that Robinson's appearance at Planned Parenthood's function is just further evidence of the close alliance between the homosexual and abortion lobbies -- and of their hypocrisy.

"Bishop Robinson left his wife and two kids to get into the homosexual lifestyle," Knight explains. "Now he lives with a male partner -- and he's calling people who are pro-life 'off the deep end.' This shows, really, the great divide between good and evil in the American church. Bishop Robinson is ignoring the Bible's clear teachings. He's promoting sodomy and abortion."

Knight believes "there will soon be a day of reckoning" for the Episcopal Church because of its elevation of Bishop Robinson.

END

Culture and Family Institute (http://www.cultureandfamily.org)

SECOND STORY

homosexual Bishop Exhorts Pro-Aborts to Use Scripture Against 'People of Faith'

By Jody Brown
April 19, 2005

(AgapePress) - How do liberal groups reach people of faith? The head of the Family Research Center in Washington, DC, offers this answer: "By inviting a homosexual bishop to speak."

FRC notes that in the wake of last fall's elections -- in which more voters named "moral values" as their top issue than any other -- there has been a lot of hand-wringing on the part of liberal groups about their need to reach out more to "people of faith." Planned Parenthood's Interfaith Prayer Breakfast on Friday (April 15) was an attempt to do that, as the keynote speaker for the event was V. Gene Robinson -- the openly homosexual Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire whose consecration has divided the Episcopal Church USA and Anglicans the world over. (See earlier story)

Gene Robinson Speaking to the pro-abortion group, Robinson said both abortion and homosexual-rights supporters should make a religious appeal. "We must use people of faith to counter the faith-based arguments against us," Robinson said. Those supporters must reclaim the scriptures, he said.

"Whether it be the Hebrew scriptures, the Christian scriptures, the Koran, or whatever -- it is time we laid claim to those," the bishop stated. "We have allowed the Bible to be taken hostage, and it is being wielded by folks who would use it to hit us over the head."

The bishop offered up some unusual interpretations of the Bible. "We have to take back those scriptures," he continued. "Those stories are our stories. I say it to lesbian folk all the time: 'You know the story of freedom in the Exodus? That's my story.' I know what it's like to be in Egypt; I know what it's like to be a slave; and I know what it's like to hear someone [like] a Moses come forward and say, 'Come out.'"

The bishop added that instead of being immature and taking the Bible literally, people need to be taught "about nuance, about different meanings. [T]he world is not black and white ... this can be true and that can be true, and somewhere between is the right answer," he assured his listeners. "Be very, very nervous about people who know exactly what God is saying."

"I know in the end [that] I'm going to heaven -- and so are you," Robinson told those in attendance.

Tony Perkins Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, says Robinson's appearance before the largest abortion provider in the world "hardly seems the best way to reach most people of faith in America." He notes particularly the bishop's allusion to the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt.

"Robinson's outlook [on freedom] bears little resemblance to the biblical one in which moral absolutes and divine truth actually exist," Perkins offers.

Bringing together homosexual activism and abortion on demand, Perkins adds, hardly seems the best way to reach most people of faith in America. He notes that the new head of the pro-homosexual Human Rights Campaign came from a pro-abortion political action committee.