Although President-elect Obama did include gays in his mention of the various groups who supported him, HBO not only blacked out Bishop Gene Robinson's invocation at today's inauguration concert, they didn't introduce the Washington DC Gay Men's Chorus when they performed, nor did they identify them onscreen. I wonder who was behind that.

Via Joe.My.God:

After days of controversy and outrage from the religious right, openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson opened Barack Obama's inauguration concert on the National Mall today with a request that the nation pray for "understanding that our president is a human being and not a messiah."

But only the people AT the concert heard that, because HBO did not televise Robinson's message. Who engineered this blackout of Robinson? I suspect we'll hear lots about this in days to come.

UPDATE: The 7PM rebroadcast of the show was identical, no Gene Robinson.

UPDATE II: The full text of Robinson's prayer is here. If you'd like to express your unhappiness to HBO, you can do that here.

Oh, and Pam Spaulding has more.