CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – The first openly gay Episcopal bishop said he is being falsely accused of suggesting Jesus might have been gay.

The allegations arose from web log comments posted after Bishop V. Gene Robinson’s remarks at a Feb. 13 forum on sexual issues at Christ Church in Hamilton, Mass.

“[Jesus] lived a very untraditional lifestyle,” Robinson, a Lexington, Ky., native, told The Associated Press. “Which is not to say that I in any way asserted that he was gay, or anything about his sexual orientation.”

Robinson told the New Hampshire Union Leader he is “being flooded with angry messages” because of his forum comments. He said he was making the point that the nuclear family is a relatively new idea and that, even for his time, Jesus apparently led a nontraditional life.

“What I recall is that the question was trying to get me to say that Jesus affirmed the nuclear family as the only way a family can be,” Robinson said. “I was just pointing out that you best check Scripture again before you use the life of Jesus to try to pronounce a blessing on that.”

Recordings from the forum are on the church’s website.

“Interestingly enough, in this day of traditional family values and so on,” Robinson says in one of the recordings, “this man that we follow … was single as far as we know; who traveled with a bunch of men, although there were lots of women around; who had a disciple who was known as ‘the one whom Jesus loved’; who said my family is not my mother and father, my family are those who do the will of God – none of us like those harsh words. That’s who Jesus is, that’s who he was, at least in his earthly life.”

Robinson married and had two daughters before accepting that he is gay. He has lived for years with his male partner.

“I happen to think the traditional family is a wonderful thing. I’m a product of it,” Robinson said at the forum. “I dearly love my family, and I love my own family, with my own two kids. It just looks a little nontraditional. But this Jesus, when you ask who is Jesus, he was not terribly mainstream, was he?”

David Virtue, who runs what he describes as an orthodox online Anglican news service, apparently was the first to accuse Robinson of suggesting Jesus was gay.

“He is a person who wants the Anglican Communion to recognize the conservatives in the Episcopal Church as the real Anglican Communion in the United States,” Robinson said. “That’s his goal, and he is willing to write and say almost anything to achieve that goal.”

Virtue responded that Robinson’s forum comments were part of the “gay agenda” that would end up splitting the worldwide Anglican Communion.

“They’re all pushing the envelope as far as they can,” said Virtue, who is based in West Chester, Pa.

The Episcopal Church, with 2.4 million members, is the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion, which traces its roots to the Church of England. The church has been roiled by controversy since Robinson’s ordination in 2003.