Openly gay New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson is in the United Kingdom where he has been excluded from the Anglican Church's Lambeth Conference of church leaders. On the BBC1 program the Andrew Marr Show, Robinson said he felt the church had made a mistake.

Gene Robinson's ordination to bishop in 2003 created a schism between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Many church leaders protested including Robinson at the conference, pressuring the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to exclude him.

Appearing on the show with British out actor Sir Ian McKellen, Robinson discussed why he was in the UK when he was not invited to the conference.

“I want the light of Christ to shine forth from me... God loves me as a gay man. And I want to share that joy with whomever wants to sit and talk with me.”

“I think miracles happen when people who are divided by something sit and talk with each other, get to know one another as human beings, and as brothers and sisters in Christ. And that's why I'm going, to offer myself in that way.”

“...I think a mistake was made in not including me in those conversations. I was the only openly gay voice that might have been at the table. But I will do what I can from the fringe.”

Sir McKellen, who is an atheist, had harsher words for the church on the topic of homosexuality: “Looking at it from the outside, the church thinks it has a particular problem with some articles, perhaps not of faith, but written in the Bible, that they refer to. I can remember the Armed Forces not that long ago saying that they had a particular problem – it had all to do with discipline. Well, it's just been discovered there is no discipline problems when you let gay people into the military. And schools too – well, we have a particular problem. The particular problem they all got - they share - is homophobia.”

Bishop Robinson has said in the past that the Bible cannot be the definitive word of God. He explained that “God didn't stop revealing God's self when the cannon of scripture was closed at the end of the first century.”

“Jesus Christ says this amazing thing at the last supper. He says to his disciples: 'There is more that I would teach you, but cannot bear it right now. So I will send the Holly Spirit who will lead you to all truth.'... God is now leading us to the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.”

Near the end of the interview, Bishop Robinson says that young people questioning their sexuality, who are unfamiliar with the Bible, always quote passages calling homosexuality an abomination. “They thought they knew what God thought of them. That they were an abomination. And the church is responsible for that... And it is going to take religious voices to undo the hatred that comes from those words.”

Later, at a Sunday church service, Bishop Robinson was forced to halt a sermon he was delivering at a London church when a heckler called him a “heretic” and said he should “repent” from a pew.

The Lambeth Conference begins on Wednesday.