This week the Supreme Court is hearing two important cases about marriage equality, and it seems like a great time to tell you about a delightful book I read last week: God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage by Gene Robinson.
Robinson is a retired Episcopal Bishop, and he was the first openly gay man in a relationship to become a Bishop. In this open-hearted and simply written little book, Robinson tells about his own journey toward accepting his sexuality, his divorce from his wife, and his experience of first civil union and then marriage to his husband. In other chapters of the book, Robinson frames the issue as a Civil Rights struggle, placing it within a larger context of history, and also examines it as a scriptural and theological issue.
One brilliant chapter in particular takes each of the most often cited as condemning homosexuality passages from the Bible and analyzes each. I thought it was ironic that according to Robinson's analysis, the Bible is patriarchal and considers women of very low-worth, but is not really anti-homosexuality. Most of these passages, by his understanding, are actually about not treating men as you would women - because the way that women were to be treated was as inferior and would be demeaning to men. Still a long way to go on all of this.
Despite all the content packed into this little book, it remains easy to read and uplifting. Robinson has a remarkable way of being righteous and prophetic, but also humble and forgiving. I highly recommend it to everyone.
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