Robert Williams (July 21, 1955 in Abilene, Texas – December 24, 1992, Boston, Massachusetts), was the first openly gay male priest whose ordination in the Episcopal Church was acknowledged beforehand by the ordaining diocese and was consequently the subject of considerable publicity.

Williams, raised a Southern Baptist was a graduate of Hardin–Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, and subsequently worked as a journalist in Dallas.

[1] He was ordained on December 16, 1989, by John Shelby Spong, Bishop of Newark, having publicly stated that he was in a sexual homosexual relationship with James Skelley, a divorced father of two.

He embarked upon a study of human sexuality at New York University, moving to Provincetown, Massachusetts when he began suffering from the complications of AIDS.

He sought to establish an Episcopalian healing ministry there in June 1991, but was denied a license by the Rt Reverend David Johnson, Bishop of Massachusetts.