God Believes in Love Quotes

“Still, as a straight person, you might say, "This just isn't my fight." No, it isn't. Unless you care about the kind of society we have. Unless you want the society of which you are a part to be a just one. Unless you believe that a free society, not to mention a godly religion, should fight injustice wherever it is found. Unless your religion tells you -- as our entire Judeo-Christian heritage does -- that any society will be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable. Unless you care about our children. Unless fairness matters to you. Unless violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people concerns you. Unless "liberty and justice for all" is something you believe applies to all our citizens.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“Jesus was consistently on the side of those who were outcast by society and bore the unfair burden of disdain, discrimination, and prejudice. It is likely that he would look at modern-day lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and hold real sympathy for them and their plight. He would have understood the implications of a system set up to benefit the heterosexual majority over the homosexual minority. It is hard to imagine Jesus joining in the wholesale discrimination against LGBT people. Isn't it logical that he would be sympathetic to young gay teens who take their own lives rather than live with the stigma attached to their sexual orientation? Would he not be found speaking a word of support, encouragement, and hope to them? Would he not be seeking a change in the hearts of those who treat them as outcasts?”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“We can move to legalize same-gender civil marriage without harming any religious institution or dictating any change to the beliefs and practices of any faith. Religious opposition to civil marriage for same-gender couples irrelevant to the civil, public debate. You're opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds? Fine! Don't authorize your clergy to act as an agent of the State in any such unions. But don't deprive the rest of, who believe that such rites are good and holy, of our constitutional rights to practice our own freedom of religion. We don't live in a theocracy where some one understanding of religion and faith dictates what the State will and will not do. This religious argument against the right to marry for gay and lesbian couples is simply bogus. And unconstitutional. Religious belief should have no bearing whatsoever on the legal right to marry.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“Far from undermining marriage, gay and lesbian couples seeking marriage for themselves are perhaps the institution's best friends. At a time when marriage is seen as less desirable and less necessary for straight couples, gay and lesbian people are lining up at town halls and church doors to participate in this traditional and long-standing institution.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“Whatever one makes of these seven passages in Scripture, it seems clear that they must not be used in the service of condemning homosexuality as we know it today. [...] There is, however, much in Scripture about compassion for one's fellow human beings, a call for empathy and justice for the marginalized, and a standard of honesty, mutuality, and love in all relationships. In the end, God believes in love. Therefore, I would argue that Scripture gives us great and lasting guidance for the conduct of our relationships, whether they be with strangers, friends, or lifelong partners.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“being gay is not about what we do; it’s about who we are. It is impossible to overstate the importance of this and the degree to which heterosexual people don’t understand it. The word “homosexual” seems to define us solely in terms of the gender of the person we’re sexually intimate with. There is much more to us than our sexuality. And besides, many gay and lesbian people—some very young, and some very old—have never been sexually intimate with anyone of the same gender, yet they know and understand themselves as gay. It’s more about the lens through which we see the world. It’s about our history of being an oppressed and discriminated-against minority. It’s about the culture that colludes to make us feel unworthy, immoral, and dirty. Every person, gay or straight, encounters the world in a particular body, with a particular sexual orientation. It affects every interaction, whether with the same or the opposite gender. That orientation affects every relationship, every encounter with another person, even if the relationship is not romantic or sexual in any way. It affects the chemistry of a relationship and the nature of the human interaction. And that is true whether or not a person has ever “acted on” the same-sex attractions he or she has felt.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“Remember how social change happens. Each of us has a worldview that pretty much interprets the world for us, puts our personal and public experiences in some kind of rational and understandable order. That worldview works fairly well for a period of time. Then something happens that renders it insufficient. Something happens that can’t be fit into life as we have known and interpreted it.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“It seems to me, then, that vulnerability and and self-disclosure are at the heart of what we understand about the nature of God. And the reason I believe gay and lesbian people are spiritual people is that we too have participated in vulnerability and self-disclosure, especially in the process of coming-out. When someone shares with you who they really, really are, it is a special offering. To do so when it risks rejection is a profound, holy gift.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“There is no question that taking such an advocacy role in seeking compassion, fair treatment in the society, and the happiness and legal status of marriage for gay and lesbian people will get such advocates in trouble. Going against the prevailing culture almost always does. But we are in good company. Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you" (Matthew 5:10-12).”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“What I cant tell you is that everything I intended and pledged in my marriage to a woman I intended and pledged in my marriage to a man. It feels like the same thing, being loved out with the one I love. It has the same trials and tribulations, the same joys and rewards. Marriage calls us to be our best selves, for each other. Marriage is the very human attempt to make a place in one's heart for another - a place so holy as to make it possible to have a love for another at times greater than the love of one's self.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“Much of the Jewish Scriptures (called the “Old Testament” by Christians) are devoted to the stories of the prophets. Let’s remember that in that tradition, a prophet is not one who foresees the future but rather one who is courageous enough to see the inequities, immoralities, and sins of the present.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“It seems to me, then, that vulnerability and self-disclosure are at the heart of what we understand about the nature of God. And the reason I believe gay and lesbian people are spiritual people is that we too have participated in vulnerability and self-disclosure, especially in the process of coming-out. When someone shares with you who they really, really are, it is a special offering. To do so when it risks rejection is a profound, holy gift.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“This is an important point, difficult for the modern mind to grasp: homosexuality as a sexual orientation was unknown to the ancient mind. Let me be clear: intimate physical contact between people of the same gender was not unknown, of course, but everyone who engaged in it was presumed to be heterosexual. Therefore, any man who lay with another man as with a woman was considered a heterosexual man acting against his true nature. The psychological construct of a homosexual orientation was not posited until the late nineteenth century—the notion that a certain minority of humankind is affectionally oriented toward people of the same gender, rather than the opposite gender. For people so oriented, intimate physical contact with people of the opposite gender would be “against their nature.” There was no question that same-gender intimate behavior existed (and was therefore prohibited), but there was no understanding that such same-gender attraction might be “in the nature” of a certain minority of people. Such a possibility was simply never contemplated by the ancient mind.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“And so, if you want to understand why a straight person might want to become an advocate for gay and lesbian people, get to know us. Get to know at least one of us well. Listen to our stories, believe our truth. It may not be your truth, but believe it’s our truth. Get to know our families. Get close enough to see us at work as faithful partners, loving parents, and contributing members of society. Ask us about our faith. Inquire as to how we seem to have put together our faith and our sexuality. Ask how we have withstood the hatred and prejudice—religious and secular—against us. And then believe us.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“The fact is, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people will never be a majority. We are a natural minority within the population. We will never garner enough votes to single-handedly bring about the change we seek. We need heterosexual people to stand with us, vote with us, and be a voice for us where we are not yet welcome.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“Still, as a straight person, you might say, “This just isn’t my fight.” No, it isn’t. Unless you care about the kind of society we have. Unless you want the society of which you are a part to be a just one. Unless you believe that a free society, not to mention a godly religion, should fight injustice wherever it is found. Unless your religion tells you—as our entire Judeo-Christian heritage does—that any society will be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable. Unless you care about our children. Unless fairness matters to you. Unless violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people concerns you. Unless “liberty and justice for all” is something you believe applies to all our citizens.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

“Nothing in Scripture or orthodox theology precludes our opening the institution of marriage to same-gender couples. Those who oppose marriage equality for gay or lesbian couples, pleading for us not to “redefine” marriage, do not understand that gay marriage only builds up the traditional meaning of marriage. We are not changing its meaning but merely revising the list of those to whom it is available. Not unlike the rather recent opening of legal marriage to interracial couples, the legal marriage of two same-gender people retains the traditional meaning of marriage while expanding the number of people whom it may benefit.”
― Gene Robinson, God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage