"It's not about me. It's about not having to be ashamed"
About this Quote
A line this spare is doing strategic work: it refuses the celebrity narrative while quietly insisting on dignity as a non-negotiable human need. Gene Robinson, an Episcopal bishop whose consecration in 2003 made him the first openly gay bishop in a major Christian denomination, is speaking into a culture that loves to treat queer visibility as personal ambition. “It’s not about me” disarms that reflex. He frames his life not as a provocation, not as a campaign for attention, but as a test case for whether a church (and a country) can stop turning people into cautionary tales.
The real payload lands in the second sentence. “Not having to be ashamed” is both intimate and political, because shame is the tool institutions use when they can’t justify exclusion on the merits. Robinson doesn’t argue doctrine here; he argues the cost of doctrine-as-weapon. The phrasing is tellingly modest: not pride, not triumph, just the baseline request to exist without flinching. That restraint is the point. It exposes how extreme the opposing demand is: that someone carry a permanent sense of moral defect to be allowed proximity to God.
The subtext is pastoral and insurgent at once. He’s speaking for the closeted teenager in the pew, the couple lowering their voices at coffee hour, the priest who preaches compassion while privately negotiating self-loathing. By shifting the frame from identity to shame, Robinson makes the debate less about “issues” and more about what kind of spiritual community is being built - one that heals, or one that manufactures wounds and calls them holiness.
The real payload lands in the second sentence. “Not having to be ashamed” is both intimate and political, because shame is the tool institutions use when they can’t justify exclusion on the merits. Robinson doesn’t argue doctrine here; he argues the cost of doctrine-as-weapon. The phrasing is tellingly modest: not pride, not triumph, just the baseline request to exist without flinching. That restraint is the point. It exposes how extreme the opposing demand is: that someone carry a permanent sense of moral defect to be allowed proximity to God.
The subtext is pastoral and insurgent at once. He’s speaking for the closeted teenager in the pew, the couple lowering their voices at coffee hour, the priest who preaches compassion while privately negotiating self-loathing. By shifting the frame from identity to shame, Robinson makes the debate less about “issues” and more about what kind of spiritual community is being built - one that heals, or one that manufactures wounds and calls them holiness.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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