Bishop Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop in New Hampshire, condemned Rick Perry’s infamous “war on religion” ad earlier this week for playing “fast and loose with both the Constitution and our men and women in uniform.” “It would be simply pathetic that Gov. Perry would do so in an effort to entice conservative voters, if it weren’t such an abuse of religion and a violation of the Constitution,” Robinson wrote in the Washington Post.
This morning, during an appearance on MSNBC with Thomas Roberts, Robinson added, “I think it must break God’s heart to see religion used in a political campaign like this”:
ROBINSON: There is something wrong in America, he got that right. But it’s when we denigrate our brave soldiers — those gay and lesbian people — who are risking their lives for us and then go on to slam the separation of church and state, which is absolutely appropriate and constitutional….I think gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are very marginalized still in our culture. They are an easy target. We are an easy target. And it plays very well to very Evangelical Christian base, but it really plays to their worse natures and the fact of the matter is, this is a man running for president. Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell is gone, it is the law of the land and for him to use the brave soldiers in that way seems to me despicable….[Perry] needs to be commander in chief for all of our troops like all of our citizens need to be full citizens of this country.
Watch it: