May 11, 2002

Book Review - Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage

In 2000 Vermont became the first state to grant gay and lesbian couples the right to join in civil unions-a groundbreaking decision that has inspired similar legislation in six states thus far. But it was not an easy victory; the ruling sparked the fiercest political conflict in the state's memory. David Moats was in the thick of it, writing a series of balanced, humane editorials that earned a Pulitzer Prize. Now he tells the intimate stories behind the battle and introduces us to all the key actors in the struggle, including the couples who first filed suit; the lawyers who spent years championing the case; and the only openly gay legislator in Vermont, who ensured victory with an impassioned, deeply personal speech on the House floor at a crucial moment.

Civil Wars is a remarkable drama of democracy at work on a human scale.

May 09, 2002

Book Review - Stitching a Revolution: The Making of an Activist

There can be few American stories more inspiring than that of the tremendous 43,000-panel AIDS quilt, a national memorial as powerfully symbolic as the Vietnam War Memorial--but made from a material as fragile and ephemeral as human life. The quilt is predicated on a simple concept: putting names to those who have died of AIDS humanizes the statistics and forces those who visit the quilt to look beyond the stigmatized categories of gayness and contagious disease that cling to the popular image of AIDS. Cleve Jones stitched the first panel in his backyard in February 1987 as a memorial to his best friend, Marvin. He has been speaking in public about the quilt for many years now, and his narrative in Stitching a Revolution is smooth and engaging. Perhaps his best quality as a storyteller is his generous recognition of others, shown in his memory of Rosa Parks in her Sunday hat: "When she handed me the quilts she'd made for her neighbors," Jones recalls, "she wanted to relish only their lives, not the divisions--just memorialize her friends and what they'd meant to her. You're doing a wonderful thing, young man, she'd said. There were no tears in her eyes, just a message for me to continue. Did my fatigue show? Did she see that the death threats and potshots had taken their toll? Dismiss them, she seemed to say, and grow old. A challenge. I brighten and feel combative." --Regina Marler

May 07, 2002

Book Review - Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal Judges Are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage

Customer Review

There is really no logical argument against homosexuality, presented in this particular book or elsewhere (that I have seen). Judicial officials are not out to destroy democracy - they're doing their job and interpreting laws that are anti-discrimination and attempting to apply it to everyday life. The conservative right in America, usually religious, does not support homosexuals because the bible tells them that homosexuals are immoral. It has been my experience that if you ask the conservative right why they consider homosexuality to be immoral, they cannot come up with any solid, logical reason, and turn to quoting bible passages, and the way this book read, I could completely picture the author doing the same. In effect, it is extremely important that one comes up with their own reason for deducing what is and is not immoral, and ethical philosophy is a very good source for doing that, as it is impartial, and turns to logic to dictate ethics rather than depend on any one authority figure.

What does harm society, are the biases, prejudices, and intolerance regarding homosexual Americans. One can also conclude that there are a lot of misconceptions and stereotypes regarding homosexuals that are simply not true. A lot of them were found in this book. This type of misinformation - the spreading of biases and the repression of fact - is what causes the intolerance that divides America.

May 05, 2002

Book Review - Troubling Education: "Queer" Activism and Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy

While several books have discussed the need for anti-oppressive school environments, few have addressed actual research for teachers to turn to as resources for classroom practice. Kumashiro draws on interviews with queer activists as a starting point for discussion of different models of reading and challenging oppression. It is through these personal stories that the complex theory and methodology Kumashiro presents gains particular relevance for creating actual pedagogical practice.