By Philip Elliot

A.P. writer

CONCORD, N.H.—The Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president Aug. 2, even though they don’t share the same views on issues key to gays and lesbians.

“Frankly, I don’t think there’s any major candidate that is where we in the gay community would hope they would be on our issues,” Bishop V. Gene Robinson said in a conference call with reporters. “That being said, I would say the senator has been enormously supportive of our issues. We appreciate his support for civil unions.”

The continuing repercussions from Robinson’s 2003 election as bishop of New Hampshire threaten to break up the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is part. His supporters hail him as a role model and civil rights pioneer.

He stressed that his endorsement was as an individual, not as bishop.

“I will not be speaking about the campaign from the pulpit or at any church function,” he said. “That is completely inappropriate. But as a private citizen, I will be at campaign events and help in any way that I can.”

The leader of an interfaith group criticized the endorsement as “just the latest example of candidates misusing religious leaders for political gain.”

“I encourage candidates to talk about the proper role of religion in public life, and I strongly defend the right of religious leaders to speak out about the important issues we are facing in the world today,” said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance. “However, when candidates turn religious leaders into political tools, they have crossed a line.”

Based in Washington, the alliance represents 185,000 members in 75 faith traditions.

Robinson said he hopes to persuade Obama to embrace marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Obama supports civil unions and rights for gay couples, but stops short of supporting gay marriage.

“If I get the opportunity, I will attempt to move him on a full acceptance of the full range of rights, including marriage, for gay and lesbian people,” Robinson said. “But at the moment, we have no major viable candidate who is where we would like them to be on the major issues.”

Robinson, a registered independent and opponent of the war in Iraq, said he was drawn to Obama because of the Illinois senator’s experience with racism and discrimination, which Robinson also has experienced.

“I think it would be hard to be a person of color in this country and not been on the receiving end of that,” he said. “I think we make a mistake when we think there has to be an act of hatred from one person to another for racism to occur, where our whole culture is set up to benefit one race over another.”

Robinson acknowledged that there’s been a lot of talk on whether Obama has the kind of experience that’s needed to be president. He said he is impressed by Obama’s “community organizing experience.”

“I come out of a community organizing background myself and I know that a key of that work is negotiation skills, forming, building a consensus and moving a large group of people forward,” Robinson said.