Barack Obama's inaugural team is taking responsibility for the omission of a prayer given by openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson at Sunday's National Mall concert.

The We Are One inaugural music festival began with a prayer at 2:20PM by the controversial bishop, but HBO began broadcasting ten minutes later, at 2:30PM.

Monday, the Obama team said it was responsible for the mistake.

“We had always intended and planned for Rt. Rev. Robinson's invocation to be included in the televised portion of yesterday's program,” inaugural committee spokesman Josh Earnest told AfterElton.com. “We regret the error in executing this plan – but are gratified that hundreds of thousands of people who gathered on the mall heard his eloquent prayer for our nation that was a fitting start to our event.”

But several reports indicated that few people in the audience got to hear the prayer because the sound system was either not working or at a very low volume.

Cathleen Falsani, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist, wrote on Monday: “Silencing the bishop's voice was a great loss. Obama's loss. Our loss.”

Robinson's participation in the inauguration was announced last Monday in the wake of a firestorm of protest by gay activists against Obama's decision to have Rev. Rick Warren give the invocation prayer at his inauguration ceremony on Tuesday. Warren is the leader of the Southern California Saddleback Church who has voiced strong opposition to gay marriage, likening it to an incestuous relationship, and backed a gay marriage ban in the state.

The San Francisco Chronicle suggested Robinson's prayer might have been too hot for the Obama team. It includes: “Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.”

Officials say the entire concert is to be replayed on jumbo television screens at the Washington mall and will include Bishop Robinson's prayer.