In the diocese of New Hampshire, I am just a bishop, not a gay bishop . It is only when I get out of the diocese that I become this other thing. The people of the diocese elected me. I was not appointed. There is a difference there.

It was the second anniversary of my consecration on Wednesday . The job is a great joy and blessing, and I am doing all the things that bishops do.

The fact I am homosexual has really not been an issue. I have been in the diocese for 30 years. The clergy and laity chose the person who would best serve them as Bishop. Of course there were some exceptions: some were unhappy with my election.

I did get a lot of hate mail at the time of the National Convention [August 2003], and I received many death threats. My partner and I had to wear bullet-proof vests for my consecration, and the diocese had to spend $100,000 on security. But it has calmed down, and I have not had any threats for almost a year.

The American economy is doing really well for a few people. As a bishop, I tend to speak out about a number of things, and I feel really strongly about the growing rift between rich and poor here. Twenty years ago, the ratio from the highest paid to the lowest was 40 to one; today, it is 400 to one.

I am currently reading The End of Poverty: Economic possibilities for our time by Jeffrey Sachs. He argues that the problem of poverty in the world is not through lack of resources but lack of will. The Millennium Development Goals, which I am terribly committed to, seem almost too large to contemplate.

The invasion of Iraq was a war of choice, not necessity. The sin of American homogeneity is another thing I feel strongly about. America is not just the largest kid on the block, but the only one, and it is swaggering round the world.

I really believe the USA should seriously repent of its arrogance. The recent tragedy on the Gulf Coast [Hurricane Katrina] illustrates the rich-poor divide in the country. It is an area where people have been living with no resources for many years.

As a gay leader, I find I am often called to speak for minorities . People seek me out. They see a connection between my experience as a gay man and the experience of those who have suffered for being black, female, handicapped, and so on. I have become very involved with the prison system in New Hampshire and am fighting for the rights of the incarcerated. The American culture and government seem to have given up on rehabilitation.

I am recognised not only in New Hampshire, but on the streets of New York. Since all the publicity, I don’t even have to wear a clerical collar for people to stop me. But when people do, it is always to thank me for what I am doing. Things like "Keep up the good work" or "Be strong." Some even say: "I don’t go to church, but what you are doing is wonderful." Or "I am not an Episcopalian, but what you are doing is important for all of us."

I had been brought up in a fundamentalist background, and my parents were terribly religious. I started reading books by Paul Tillich in my senior year in high school, and his books were very influential when I was at seminary.

My partner [Mark Andrew] and I are quite the doting grandfathers . My own family is very important to me. I have two daughters: one will be 28 this month, and the younger will be 24 on Christmas Day. My older daughter has two children, whom we love and see regularly.

I met Mark about 18 years ago. We both have a wonderful relationship with my family, including my ex-wife, who has remarried. Isabella was one of the presenters at my consecration.

The reports that I abandoned my wife and children are quite wrong. My former wife was married again before I even met my partner. Neither she nor my two children ever felt abandoned.

People talk about the wild gay lifestyle. But Mark and I used to have the girls at weekends, make the popcorn, do the family stuff, and make sure there were clean clothes for school on Monday.

As I child I wanted to be a paediatrician. I had been very ill, and my paediatrician played a very important role in my life. I had had a very difficult birth, and was not expected to live. If I did, they thought I would be a total vegetable. My paediatrician always used to say to me: "You sure look better than when I first saw you." I went off to college to study pre-med, but realised it was the people bit I liked and not the medicine and science.

Accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour is the biggest choice I have ever made.

My fear of water and not learning to swim is one of my big regrets. I love to sail and water-ski, but I can’t swim for very long periods and get tired very quickly. I inherited this from my mother.

If I could be remembered for any one thing, it would be that I pointed to God and not myself. When Jesus did all those amazing things, when people tried to tell him how terrific he was, he always said it was God who was terrific.

My favourite part of the Bible is the Gospel of Luke. My least favourite is the Gospel of John. I love Luke because it was written for the Gentiles, and focuses on outcasts, the marginalised, and sinners. It brings us the story of the Good Samaritan and others.

I think John puts into Jesus’s mouth certainties about who he was that are probably not accurate. It is a theological reflection of what his life meant. If Jesus Christ knew who he really was, he was just pretending to be human; but I believe Jesus really became human and experienced life with all its uncertainties as we do. It robs Jesus of his real humanity. This issue is still troublesome to me.

I get angry every time George Bush speaks. Not only do I get angry: I get so embarrassed by our President. I respect the office, but George Bush is a terrible steward of it. He has used his power for the wrong reasons. I rarely make it through a whole speech of his on TV.

He has shamelessly used his faith to gain support from the far Right. But it is his policies I don’t like. He has bankrupted this country through the war in Iraq and then the situation in our own Gulf Coast. Our children and grandchildren will be paying the bills — and he still talks about tax cuts for the rich.

My visitation to parishes is the happiest moments of my week — and seeing my grandchildren. Seeing the parishes’ mission in the world never ceases to amaze and inspire me.

I have been a priest for 32 years, and I never come to the altar to celebrate the eucharist without a warm, spiritual feeling. It is a privilege to have been chosen by the Church to celebrate the sacraments. It sounds sentimental, but it really is an honour.

The fairtrade movement is growing over here. We have fairtrade coffee at the diocesan offices, and many parishes support it. It is something we all need to pay more attention to.

I am a beach person. I love sitting on the beach, reading a good book, and thinking about little else. For many years, we have gone to the same island in the Caribbean. I used to be priest for three of the Sundays and stay in the rectory with Mark. But when I was first nominated to become a bishop, the then Archbishop of the West Indies [the Most Revd Orland Lindsay] heard I was gay, and I received a very short letter asking me not to come back to the church.

Real pasta has flavour, and is not just a delivery system for the sauce. We both love to cook and entertain, and on my last sabbatical we went to Italy and did a cookery course at a school in Tuscany. We discovered the key to Tuscan cooking is the length of time it takes. A simple ragu meat sauce is cooked for six hours, and by the time it has been cooking for four the flavour really changes. But, of course, very few have time to do this in our everyday lives.

I would love to get locked in a church with the Primate of Nigeria, the Most Revd Peter Akinola. I think if we had an appointment to meet or, in fact, were forced in this way to talk to one another, we would discover that we are both children of God and both brothers in Christ, and might get beyond the impasse we seem to be at. It breaks my heart, and I would passionately like to get to know Peter and people like him.

I am not a saint, but nor am I the devil that many paint me . We would never see eye to eye over homosexuality, but if we saw and responded to each other’s faith and reliance on faith, we could get past where we are now.

The Rt Revd Gene Robinson was talking to Rachel Harden.