God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage

(Paperback)

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From the IX Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church, the first openly gay person elected to the episcopate and the world's leading religious spokesperson for gay rights and gay marriage-a groundbreaking book that persuasively makes the case for same-sex marriage using a commonsense, reasoned, religious argument. Robinson holds the religious text of the Bible to be holy and sacred and the ensuing two millennia of church history to be relevant to the discussion. He is equally familiar with the secular and political debate about gay marriage going on in America today, and is someone for whom same-sex marriage is a personal issue; Robinson was married to a woman for fourteen years and is a father of two children and has been married to a man for the last four years of a twenty-five-year relationship. Robinson has a knack for taking complex and controversial issues and addressing them in plain direct language, without using polemics or ideology, putting forth his argument for gay marriage, and bringing together sacred and secular points of view.

Reviews

Personal, well-written, and well-argued . . . its greatest hope for success lies in soothing the troubled hearts of young people questioning their conflicting identities.
Louisville Courier-Journal

An invitation to recognize the power and possibility of marriage for all people . . . Written with a pastoral heart and considerable academic insight, Robinson effectively argues the importance and value of strong marriages . . . a thoughtful theological approach.
SoWhatFaith.com

A family-friendly, easy to read book that explains the necessity of gay marriage to the masses . . . courageous . . . erudite . . . conveys complicated principles with ease.
Edge

Conversational and essayistic . . . methodically argued, cogently and brightly written, structured as chapter-length responses to commonly voiced questions about, and objections to, same-sex marriage . . . consistently Christian but also pervasively liberal.
The Boston Globe

[A] mix of reasoned logic, personal experiences, church teachings, and social science . . . The underlying tone is one of compassion and genuine hope for meaningful shift toward acceptance of same-sex unions . . . gentle with moments of humor . . . a solid entrance into the LGBT-affirming worldview.
Publishers Weekly

Reasoned . . . Robinson's strength is his willingness to see these questions from another perspective . . . Sober and well-structured.
Kirkus

Couldnt be more timely, nor more authoritative . . . Robinson does yeomans work at arguing [the gay-marriage debate] concisely.
Booklist


About Gene Robinson

My friend, Bishop Gene Robinson, has long been a voice for equalitynot with anger or vitriol, but with compassion and faith. He has been guided by the simple precept that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
President Barack Obama

For someone in the eye of the storm buffeting our beloved Anglican Communion, Gene Robinson is so serene; he is not a wild-eyed belligerent campaigner. I was so surprised at his generosity towards those who have denigrated him and worse. Gene Robinson is a wonderful human being, and I am proud to belong to the same church as he.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate

Gene Robinson is no revolutionary: he upholds marriage as a sacred covenant, but knows the same covenant theology can include same-sex partnerships too. For living this truth he has been scapegoatednot for being the first gay bishop, but the first honest one. By Gods grace he had stayed strong, still trying to love his enemies into friends. One day the Church will understand what it owes him.
The Very Rev. Jeffrey John, Dean, St. Albans Cathedral, England

Author Bio

Gene Robinson was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, and graduated from the University of the South with a B.A. in American studies and history. He completed the M.Div. degree in 1973 at the General Theological Seminary in New York, and was ordained deacon and then priest. Having served as Canon to the Ordinary (assistant to the bishop) for nearly eighteen years, he was elected bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire in 2003. He retired as bishop in January 2013. The author of three AIDS curricula for youth, he is also the recipient of numerous awards from civil, human, and LGBT rights organizations. Robinson is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC.