Rev. Gene Robinson (C), retired bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese of the Episcopal Church, attends an Easter prayer breakfast in the East Room of the White House in Washington April 14, 2014. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Rev. Gene Robinson (C), retired bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese of the Episcopal Church, attends an Easter prayer breakfast in the East Room of the White House in Washington April 14, 2014. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, has announced he is divorcing his husband of over 25 years.

Such developments aren't really unique actually because same-sex marriages are no different from other unions, he said.

"It is at least a small comfort to me, as a gay rights and marriage equality advocate, to know that like any marriage, gay and lesbian couples are subject to the same complications and hardships that afflict marriages between heterosexual couples," Mr Robinson wrote in an op-ed on the Daily Beast. "All of us sincerely intend, when we take our wedding vows, to live up to the ideal of 'til death do us part.' But not all of us are able to see this through until death indeed parts us."

The couple married in 2010, immediately when New Hampshire legalized gay marriage. The union triggered many Episcopalians to break away from the main church.

Initially married to a woman and fathered two daughters, Mr Robinson came out as gay in 1986 and then separated from his wife. They later divorced.

Mr Robinson met his husband Mark Andrew in the late 1980s while on vacation in St. Croix. The two formalized their relationship with a civil union in 2008. In 2011, when same-sex marriage was legalized in New Hampshire, their civil union automatically became a marriage.

The Episcopal Church eventually voted in 2012 to allow bishops to permit priests to bless same-sex marriages.

Mr Robinson was the head of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire until his retirement in 2013.