Gay Bishop To Lead Invocation At Opening Inaugural Celebration

January 13, 2009 9:21 a.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The Reverend V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay Episcopal bishop, will lead the invocation during the inaugural celebration to be held on the Sunday before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in, the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) has announced.

The Opening Celebration for the 56th Presidential Inaugural will be held at the Lincoln Memorial this weekend ahead of the Jan. 20 swearing-in ceremonies. An event free to the public, it will include musical performances by Bruce Springsteen, U2, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder. Actors Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx and Queen Latifah will also read historical passages.

Apart from Robinson, an early supporter of the president-elect who had served as an Obama campaign adviser last year, the PIC has also announce that the Rev. Sharon E. Watkins of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), has been selected to give the sermon at the National Prayer Service during the conclusion of Inaugural activities next Wednesday. She will become the first woman to lead the service.

The choice of including Robinson and Watkins in the inauguration comes a month after the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced that megachurch pastor Rick Warren would deliver the invocation during the swearing-in ceremony. The choice of Warren had angered liberal and gay groups, so much so one group started a petition and one gay leader declared he would boycott the inauguration.

"My prayer when I preach is always that God will use me to bring a Gospel message that is uplifting and appropriately challenging to those who hear it," Watkins had said in a statement released by PIC. "I hope that my message will call us to believe in something bigger than ourselves and remind us to reach out to all of our neighbors to build communities of possibility."

"Whether these picks heal the divisions exposed by Warren's role or not, this is a self-evidently good turn of events," Faith in Public Life, a progressive group, said in its blog on Monday.

Warren, author of the best-selling "The Purpose Driven Life" and pastor of the 22,000-member Saddleback Church in California, had compared gay marriages to incest, polygamy and "an older guy marrying a child" in an interview with Beliefnet. He also supported Proposition 8, an initiative banning same-sex unions in the California.