Gay in America


Book Description

A photographic survery of gay men in America. The photographer traveled across all fifty states to document the lives of 140 gay men from all walks of life.




Gay Artists in Modern American Culture


Book Description

Today it is widely recognized that gay men played a prominent role in defining the culture of mid-twentieth-century America, with such icons as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Montgomery Clift, and Rock Hudson defining much of what seemed distinctly "American" on the stage and screen. Even though few gay artists were "out," their sexuality caused significant anxiety during a time of rampant antihomosexual attitudes. Michael Sherry offers a sophisticated analysis of the tension between the nation's simultaneous dependence on and fear of the cultural influence of gay artists. Sherry places conspiracy theories about the "homintern" (homosexual international) taking control and debasing American culture within the paranoia of the time that included anticommunism, anti-Semitism, and racism. Gay artists, he argues, helped shape a lyrical, often nationalist version of American modernism that served the nation's ambitions to create a cultural empire and win the Cold War. Their success made them valuable to the country's cultural empire but also exposed them to rising antigay sentiment voiced even at the highest levels of power (for example, by President Richard Nixon). Only late in the twentieth century, Sherry concludes, did suspicion slowly give way to an uneasy accommodation of gay artists' place in American life.




Gay Culture in America


Book Description

Groundbreaking anthology exploring the cultural and developmental experiences of gay men in America today.




Gay Rights and Moral Panic


Book Description

Using the 1977 campaign against the Dade County Florida gay rights ordinance as a focal point, this book provides an examination of the emergence of the modern lesbian and gay American movement, the challenges it posed to the accepted American notions of sexuality, and how American society reacted in turn.




The Future of Gay Rights in America


Book Description

Sandra Day O'Connor has called the gay rights movement "the first important civil rights struggle of the twenty-first century." Recent court decisions to overturn sodomy laws and to recognize gay marriage have emboldened activists, but have also resulted in a tremendous backlash, not the least of which has been a call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between members of the opposite sex. Through its historical and legal contextualization of these decisions The Future of Gay Rights in America is essential for understanding an epochal moment in the history of gay rights.




Gay Life and Culture


Book Description

Originally published: London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2006.




Created Equal


Book Description

Why should Americans who are not gay care about gay rights? In Created Equal, Michael Nava and Robert Dawidoff argue that the movement for gay equality is central to the continuing defense of individual liberty in America. Beginning with an examination of the determined assault on gay issues by the religious right, the authors show how this sectarian movement to legislate private religious morality into law undermines the purpose of American constitutional government: the protection of the individual's right to determine how best to live his or her life. The book starts from the premise that gay men and lesbians are, first and foremost, American citizens, and then looks to what rights belong to every individual American citizen, arguing from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Addressing their argument to the great majority of their fellow Americans, Dawidoff and Nava emphasize that what is at stake is not the fate of the gay community, but the future of constitutional principle and the rights of free individuals in American society.




Gay America


Book Description

Milestones of gay and lesbian life in the United States are brought together in the first-ever nonfiction book on the topic published specifically for teens. Profusely illustrated with period photographs, first-person accounts offer insight as each chapter identifies an important era. From the Gay '20s to the Kinsey study, from the McCarthy witch hunts to the Beat generation, from Stonewall to disco, and from AIDS to gay marriage and families, this overview gives a balanced look at how queer men and women have lived, worked, played--and fought to overcome prejudice and discrimination--for the past 125 years.--From publisher description.




Stand by Me


Book Description

From a prominent young historian, the untold story of the rich variety of gay life in America in the 1970s Despite the tremendous gains of the LGBT movement in recent years, the history of gay life in this country remains poorly understood. According to conventional wisdom, gay liberation started with the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village in 1969. The 1970s represented a moment of triumph -- both political and sexual -- before the AIDS crisis in the subsequent decade, which, in the view of many, exposed the problems inherent in the so-called "gay lifestyle". In Stand by Me, the acclaimed historian Jim Downs rewrites the history of gay life in the 1970s, arguing that the decade was about much more than sex and marching in the streets. Drawing on a vast trove of untapped records at LGBT community centers in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, Downs tells moving, revelatory stories of gay people who stood together -- as friends, fellow believers, and colleagues -- to create a sense of community among people who felt alienated from mainstream American life. As Downs shows, gay people found one another in the Metropolitan Community Church, a nationwide gay religious group; in the pages of the Body Politic, a newspaper that encouraged its readers to think of their sexuality as a political identity; at the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore, the hub of gay literary life in New York City; and at theaters putting on "Gay American History," a play that brought to the surface the enduring problem of gay oppression. These and many other achievements would be largely forgotten after the arrival in the early 1980s of HIV/AIDS, which allowed critics to claim that sex was the defining feature of gay liberation. This reductive narrative set back the cause of gay rights and has shaped the identities of gay people for decades. An essential act of historical recovery, Stand by Me shines a bright light on a triumphant moment, and will transform how we think about gay life in America from the 1970s into the present day.




Global Gay


Book Description

A panoramic view of gay rights, gay life, and the gay experience around the world. In Global Gay, Frédéric Martel visits more than fifty countries and documents a revolution underway around the world: the globalization of LGBT rights. From Saudi Arabia to South Africa, from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv, from Singapore to the United States, activists, culture warriors, and ordinary people are part of a movement. Martel interviews the proprietor of a “gay-friendly” café in Amman, Jordan; a Cuban-American television journalist in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; a South African jurist who worked with Nelson Mandela to enshrine gay rights in the country's constitution; an American lawyer who worked on the campaign for marriage equality; an Egyptian man who fled his country after escaping a raid on a gay club; and many others. He tells us that in China, homosexuality is neither prohibited nor permitted, and that much Chinese gay life takes place on social media; that in Iran, because of the strict separation of the sexes, it seems almost easier to be gay than heterosexual; and that Raul Castro's daughter, a gay rights icon in Cuba, expressed her lingering anti-American sentiments by calling for Pride celebrations in May rather than June. Ten countries maintain the death penalty for homosexuals. “Homophobia is what Arab governments give to Islamists to keep them calm,” one activist tells Martel. Martel finds that although the “gay American way of life” has created a global template for gay activism and culture, each country offers distinctly local variations. And around the world, the status of gay rights has become a measure of a country's democracy and modernity. This English edition, which has been thoroughly revised and updated, has received the French Voices Award for excellence in publication and translation, supported by a grant from the French-American Book Fund.