--- title: Supreme Court: Bishop Gene Robinson on a Big Day for Gays and God description: It's my hope that the SCOTUS ruling inspires the LGBT community to work for the greater good of all who are oppressed canonical: https://time.com/3938349/supreme-court-gay-marriage-god/ author: Gene Robinson article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-26T19:43:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:19.538Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Supreme Court: Bishop Gene Robinson on a Big Day for Gays and God og:description: It's my hope that the SCOTUS ruling inspires the LGBT community to work for the greater good of all who are oppressed og:url: https://time.com/3938349/supreme-court-gay-marriage-god/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2fa19d4de2462b32/698858b3e53aba7ace4de635/gay-marriage4.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: People celebrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after the ruling in favor of same-sex marriage June 26, 2015 in Washington, DC. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Supreme Court: Bishop Gene Robinson on a Big Day for Gays and God twitter:description: It's my hope that the SCOTUS ruling inspires the LGBT community to work for the greater good of all who are oppressed twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2fa19d4de2462b32/698858b3e53aba7ace4de635/gay-marriage4.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Let This Inspire the LGBT Community To Be Something Greater Than We Once Were ## Video: This is The History of the Rainbow Flag [Watch (HLS stream): This is The History of the Rainbow Flag](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bnTiT5cr.m3u8) (1:31)  _Published 2015-06-24. How the rainbow flag became an icon of LGBT rights_ by [Gene Robinson](https://time.com/author/gene-robinson/) ## Gene Robinson Jun 26, 2015 7:43 PM UTC  People celebrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after the ruling in favor of same-sex marriage June 26, 2015 in Washington, DC. People celebrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after the ruling in favor of same-sex marriage June 26, 2015 in Washington, DC.Mark Wilson—Getty Images by [Gene Robinson](https://time.com/author/gene-robinson/) ## Gene Robinson Jun 26, 2015 7:43 PM UTC Growing up poor in rural Kentucky, the gay son of tobacco sharecroppers, I never dreamt I would see what we saw today from the Supreme Court. In those days, love between two men or two women was spoken of only in whispers, if at all. Today, the right to marry the one we love was shouted from the rooftops by the highest court in the land. I received news of the Supreme Court’s marriage-equality decision while in Salt Lake City, this year’s site of the every-three-years General Convention of the Episcopal Church. Religion has been at the center of the debate about marriage equality, even though it was always civil, not religious, marriage that the LGBT community has sought through our civic institutions and secular courts. The Episcopal Church has been more welcoming of LGBT people than many denominations and has long been on record as supporting civil marriage for couples of the same gender. But our theology and thinking about the _religious_ sacrament of marriage has been less supportive. Full and equal access to the church’s sacrament of marriage for same-gender couples is high on our 2015 convention agenda, with changes proposed in our canons which would not only permit those marriages, but also offer a number of liturgical possibilities for blessing and celebrating holy matrimony. It’s an exciting time to be an American and an Episcopalian. ### See Some of the First Gay Marriages in These States  George Harris, center left, 82, and Jack Evans, center right, 85, kiss after being married by Judge Garcia in Dallas on Friday, June 26, 2015. Tony Gutierrez—AP  Miesha Stinson, left, and Tiarra Harris, of Ypsilanti, Mich., embrace after exchanging vows in Ann Arbor, Mich., on June 26, 2015. Paul Sancya—AP  Jaque Roberts, left, and her partner of 31 years, Carmelita Cabello, right, arrive to apply for their marriage license at the Travis County building in Austin on June 26, 2015,. Eric Gay—AP  Ethan Fletcher, left, and Andrew Hickam fill out their marriage paperwork at Hamilton County Probate Court in Cincinnati on June 26, 2015. John Minchillo—AP  Emma Foulkes, left, and Petrina Bloodworth hold hands and show their wedding rings after being married at the Foulton County Courthouse in Atlanta on June 26, 2015. John Bazemore—AP  Tony Chiaro, left, and Earnie Matheson, right, embrace after exchanging vows in the first same sex marriage performed in Pulaski County, in Little Rock, Ark. on June 26, 2015. Brian Chilson—AP  Janelle Ebone, right, puts her arm around her partner, Christine, left, as she shows off their marriage license at the Travis County building in Austin on June 26, 2015. Eric Gay—AP  Beverly Reicks, right, and Kathy Petterson, the first same sex couple to wed in Omaha, Neb., leave the Douglas County Clerk's office on June 26, 2015. Nati Harnik—AP  Breanne Brodak, left, and Cortney Tucker kiss after being married by Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown in Pontiac, Mich. on June 26, 2015. Carlos Osorio—AP As a person of faith, I believe in a God who is always and everywhere working for justice. If God can’t find partners in that work inside the church, synagogue, and mosque, God will go outside religious institutions for allies in that justice work. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of marriage equality, religious people must discern whether or not God is working for justice for LGBT people, with or without the church, and whether or not to join God in that effort. This discernment is important because much work remains in the fight for equality for our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender friends, family members and fellow citizens. Our country is still a patchwork quilt of rights for this segment of our American community. Yes, as of today, marriage equality is the law of the land, but in many states, someone who is married on Sunday can still be fired on Monday for being gay—with absolutely no recourse in the courts. That newly married gay couple can _legally_ be denied lodging on their honeymoon or housing upon their return home. If you had told me 10 years ago that we would have national marriage equality before job protections for LGBT people, I would have told you that you were crazy! But that is the craziness we must live with for a little while longer, until we get this completely right. The biggest question I have in the face of this stunning and wonderful development is this: Has the LGBT community learned, out of our own experience of oppression, the importance of working to end _all_ oppression? Will we work for “justice for all,” or will we be content with justice for “just us?” Will we use our knowledge of what it’s like to be treated as second-class citizens to understand and ally ourselves with those who are gunned down because of the color of their skin? Will our now legally sanctioned families come to the aid of those immigrant families torn apart by deportation? Will we use our experience to work for those who live their lives in a wheelchair, or in poverty, or in the body of the gender not meant to be theirs? Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion, “In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.” It is my hope that today’s Supreme Court ruling inspires the LGBT community to become something greater than we once were and work for the greater good of all who are oppressed. The God of the Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—is believed to always be working on behalf of those who are marginalized, oppressed, and discriminated against. In violation of my own rule to never claim to know, for sure, the mind of God, I will venture to guess that it is as good a day for God as it is for God’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children. And there even better days ahead, when the justice we taste today increases in our lives and in the lives of _all_ of God’s children. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3938349/supreme-court-gay-marriage-god/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3938349/supreme-court-gay-marriage-god/"},"headline":"Let This Inspire the LGBT Community To Be Something Greater Than We Once Were","datePublished":"2015-06-26T19:43:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:41:19.538Z","description":"It's my hope that the SCOTUS ruling inspires the LGBT community to work for the greater good of all who are oppressed","url":"https://time.com/3938349/supreme-court-gay-marriage-god/","keywords":["Religion"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2fa19d4de2462b32/698858b3e53aba7ace4de635/gay-marriage4.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Gene Robinson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/gene-robinson/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2fa19d4de2462b32/698858b3e53aba7ace4de635/gay-marriage4.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"People celebrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after the ruling in favor of same-sex marriage June 26, 2015 in Washington, DC.","caption":"People celebrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after the ruling in favor of same-sex marriage June 26, 2015 in Washington, DC.","creditText":"Mark Wilson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3938349/supreme-court-gay-marriage-god/","name":"Let This Inspire the LGBT Community To Be Something Greater Than We Once Were"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"This is The History of the Rainbow Flag","description":"How the rainbow flag became an icon of LGBT rights","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bnTiT5cr/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-06-24T22:02:03.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bnTiT5cr.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3938349/supreme-court-gay-marriage-god/","duration":"PT1M31S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3938349/supreme-court-gay-marriage-god/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```