"We had to spend $100,000 on security. I wore a bulletproof vest under my vestments. We did have a contingency plan that if shots were fired or a bomb went off and I was still alive, I was to be taken to a separate location. Three bishops - it takes three bishops to lay hands on you and ordain you - would be there with a photographer, so if I was still alive the consecration would not be thwarted."
The personal attacks on him have been venomous. The Baptist preacher Fred Phelps called him "a disgusting, detestable, loathsome, filthy abomination - the great whoremonger". Internet sites commonly refer to him as Satan or Beelzebub's Boy. When Robinson recently went into rehab to deal with an alcohol problem, you could almost hear their whoops of joy. More serious is the response of other parts of the Anglican Communion. The Church of England has tried to maintain a lofty silence, though the Archbishop of Canterbury has asked him not to preach or celebrate Mass within his jurisdiction.
Churches such as those in Nigeria, which has 17 million Anglicans, have been more venomous, seeking to have the American church expelled from the communion. They have described gay people as "beasts" with whom they will not share a room, and the Nigerian bishops said the Americans were a "cancerous lump" which should be "excised".
The whole issue is likely to come to a head at the Lambeth Conference next year. This gathering, held every ten years, brings together all the Communion's bishops for prayer and discussion at Canterbury. Robinson says he is the only bishop in the world who has so far not been invited.It could well turn into a firestorm. If the Americans and the Nigerians cannot share a room, let alone communion, it could well spell the end of Anglicanism as we know it. There will be plenty willing to blame Robinson for its demise.
HE TAKES COMFORT from a statement from the Scottish Episcopal Church, whose bishops said publicly two years ago that being homosexual is not a bar to ministry. "It was supportive and I was grateful for it. As you can imagine, statements like that are few and far between at the moment in the Anglican Communion. It was a refusal to draw a line in the sand."
Robinson warns, though, that the price of support could see the Scottish church, as well as the American one, being forced out of the Communion. "If the Episcopal Church in America is to bear some sort of punishment, it would not seem unlikely that all those who have stood with us might be so punished."
As a Christian, can he forgive his enemies? "You know, I can. And here's why. They only believe what the church has taught them to believe, and I believed those same things myself for a very long time. That is what a gay person has to contend with. We've been taught the same things everyone else has. The church has taught us all to condemn homosexual behaviour. I would argue it has taught that mistakenly, but I can certainly understand why people feel this way, so no, I don't have any trouble forgiving."
IT WAS FORTY YEARS AGO TODAY...
THE Sexual Offences Act, which partially decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men, both of whom had to be over 21, was given Royal Assent 40 years ago today, on 28 July 1967, after a night of heated debate in the Commons. It applied only to England and Wales: Scotland would have to wait until 1980 for such liberalisation, while the Armed Forces remained exempt until 2000.
The Sexual Offences Act was significantly influenced by the Wolfenden Report of 1957, which recommended the decriminalisation of certain homosexual acts between consenting adults in the privacy of their homes, and established a certain legitimacy for same-sex relationships which hitherto had been mired in discrimination, repression and very necessary secrecy. The gay community had hitherto existed as a shady and persecuted subculture, perpetually fearful of discovery which might destroy lives and reputations. One of the bill's sponsors, Lord Arran, commented: "Perhaps a million human beings will be able to live in greater peace. I find this an awesome and marvellous thing." He quoted from a letter Oscar Wilde, left, wrote after his release from Reading gaol: "Yes, we shall win in the end; but the road will be long and red with monstrous martyrdoms."
The act set the age of consent between men at 21, and raised the penalties for certain "acts of gross indecency".
North of the Border, where sexual activity between males, consenting or otherwise, remained punishable by heavy prison sentences, the Scottish Minorities Group, later to become the Scottish Homosexual Rights Group and then Outright Scotland, was established in 1969, its campaigning playing a significant part in prompting the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act of 1980. The first International Gay Rights Conference was held in Edinburgh in 1974.
In the Eighties, while openly gay pop stars such as Boy George, Jimmy Sommerville and Frankie Goes to Hollywood gave a certain popular voice to the gay community, the continuing harassment and even murder of gay men prompted the formation of Outrage! And despite the advent of "gay pride" (the UK's first Gay Pride march was held in London in 1972; Glasgay was founded in 1993), prejudice hardly evaporated overnight - witness the "gay plague" witchhunts during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s.
In February 1994, the age of consent for sex between men was reduced by parliament to 18 and, after two attempted blocks by the House of Lords, in 2000 the age of consent for gay men was lowered to 16, on a par with heterosexuals. A further step on the road to normalisation was taken on 18 November, 2004, with the Civil Partnerships Act. More than 15,500 gay and lesbian couples put a seal on their relationships between December 2005, when the first registrations took place, and December 2006.
Just this week, a small but telling victory was chalked up when the reggae star Buju Banton, whose 1990 hit Boom Bye Bye, which advocated the shooting of gay men, pledged to desist from singing homophobic lyrics.
Millions believe this man is the Antichrist
