Robinson had endorsed a candidate previously

During a conference call with reporters in which New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson endorsed Barack Obama's presidential campaign, he said Obama was the first candidate he has ever publicly endorsed.

Well that does not appear to be the case.

Stephen Abbott, editor of nhreligion.com (and a loyal Primary Source reader), reminded that actually Robinson endorsed John Kerry at a well attended and well covered event at Franklin Pierce College a few weeks before the 2004 general election.

The Union Leader ran a story on his endorsement as did the local Monadnock Ledger-Transcript. The Union Leader later wrote a follow-up story taking a look at the tax-exempt status of his church after he made the endorsement.

Both Union Leader stories are in their paid archive, but the Ledger-Transcript story can still be found here.

Robinson was in London today and he was not immediately reachable to comment on why he described his endorsement of Obama as his first.

For what it's worth, even though Robinson supported Kerry it wasn't exactly a glowing endorsement.

According to the Ledger-Transcript story he referred to John Kerry as George Kerry and then said “the truth is neither one of these men is going to make us secure" and "both of their parties are telling are telling bald-faced lies in their commercials."