First out church official announces divorce partner of 25 years

On Saturday, retired religious leader Bishop Gene Robinson has announced that he will be divorcing his husband whom he had married in 2010. The 66 year-old former church official's husband, Mark Andrews, has been his partner in the last 25 years.

In his May 4 column for the Daily Beast titled, "A Bishop's Decision to Divorce," Robinson chronicled his difficult process to arrive at his decision. He wrote, "It is at least a small comfort to me, as a gay rights and marriage equality advocate, to know that like any marriage, gay and lesbian couples are subject to the same complications and hardships that afflict marriages between heterosexual couples. All of us sincerely intend, when we take our wedding vows, to live up to the ideal of "til death do us part." But not all of us are able to see this through until death indeed parts us."

Since coming out in 1986, Robinson's election as a bishop in 2003 was controversial, of which Buzzfeed said had led to some conservative Episcopalians to quit. Nonetheless, Robinson being the first church out gay bishop has not stop him from leading the Episcopal Church for a decade. At present, Robinson's column profile read that he is currently working as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Before getting married, Robinson and Andrews had a civil union ceremony in 2008. Despite the ending of their marriage, Robinson had only kind words to his former partner as evident in his Daily Beast column.

Although Robinson's divorce could be a blow for rights advocates on the national debate for same-sex marriage in the country, NBC Chicago 5 reported that the divorce rate in the states that recognizes same-sex marriage is 20% lower than in the states that bans it. The first state that legalizes gay marriage, Massachusetts, has the lowest divorce rate at 2.2 divorces per 1,000 people. The states of Idaho and Oklahoma has the highest divorce rates at around 5 divorces per a thousand people.

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Bishop Gene Robinson, Episcopal Church, Center for American Progress

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