Sunday, January 18, 2009

Gay Bishop's Invocation Missing from HBO's 'We Are One' Concert

It seems in HBO land 'We Are NOT One' ... at least not if you are lesbian or gay. HBO not only omitted the invocation by Bishop Gene Robinson, but neglected to introduce (or identify) the Washington DC Gay Men's Chorus while they were onstage. What's up with that HBO?

Joe.My.God writes:

After days of controversy and outrage from the religious right, openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson opened Barack Obama's inauguration concert on the National Mall today with a request that the nation pray for "understanding that our president is a human being and not a messiah."

But only the people AT the concert heard that, because HBO did not televise Robinson's message. Who engineered this blackout of Robinson? I suspect we'll hear lots about this in days to come.

UPDATE: The 7PM rebroadcast of the show was identical, no Gene Robinson.

UPDATE II: The full text of Robinson's prayer is here. If you'd like to express your unhappiness to HBO, you can do that here.
President-elect Obama included gays when talking about various groups that comprise the fabric of this country. So what's the story HBO?


** UPDATE **

Here is what you missed if you only saw the concert on HBO:



**UPDATE 2**

The rebroadcast of the HBO special "We Are One" now includes the invocation by Bishop Gene Robinson. We the people were heard!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

They did not introduce/announce any of the choirs. That was not discriminatory against the Gay Men's Chorus.

Anonymous said...

Well, if it turns out that this is the only "blackout" during the entire broadcast...I *won't* waste my time emailing HBO. I'll call up ATT Uverse and pull HBO from my line up.
Hit them in the wallets.

Anonymous said...

I was there - the invocation was before the event started and the sound system was not working properly at that point. The HBO broadcast picked up at the scheduled start time of 2:30 PM, when the Biden's were introduced and the sound system kicked in.

Mary Beth said...

Thank you so much for posting this! I've linked to it too.

BAC said...

Mary Beth - welcome and thanks!


BAC

Anonymous said...

I wasn't able to watch live, so I watched a video stream off of HBO's website yesterday (Friday 1/23) and Bishop Robinson was on it.

I'll add this...I heard HBO has copyrighted the concert and anyone who used their camera phone during the concert and posts pics will be in violation of said law.

My $0.02 on that....PISS OFF HBO!!! That concert belongs to THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. My tax dollars paid for the equipment rental, performers fees, food, etc, etc.

BAC said...

I updated this post today when I, too, saw Robinson in the rebroadcast.


BAC