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State University of New York Press - W. C. Harris

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151 pages

English

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Slouching towards Gaytheism brings together two intellectual traditions—the New Atheism and queer theory—and moves beyond them to offer a new voice for gay Americans and atheists alike. Examining the continued vehemence of homophobia in cultural and political debate regarding queer equality, this unabashed polemic insists that the needs met by religion might be met—more safely and less toxically—by forms of community that do not harass and malign gay and lesbian Americans or impede collective social progress. W. C. Harris argues that compromises with traditional religion, no matter how enlightened or well intentioned, will ultimately leave heteronormativity alive and well. He explores a range of recent movements, such as Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project, reparative "ex-gay" therapy, Christian purity culture, and attempts by liberal Christians to reconcile religion with homosexuality, and shows how these proposed solutions are either inadequate or positively dangerous. According to the author, the time has come for "gaytheism": leaving religion behind in order to preserve queer dignity, rights, and lives.
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Where Gays Lie

1. “The End of the Rainbow, My Pot of Gold”: The Queer Erotics of Purity Balls and Christian Abstinence Culture

2. Breeding Fraternities: Ex-Gay Ministries, Barebacking, and Alternative Models of Relation

3. Jesus Needs Gays, Yes He Does: Gay Religion, Queer Spirituality, and the Recalcitrance of Ideology

4. Slouching toward Gaytheism: Gay Suicide, “It Gets Better,” and Religion’s Stranglehold on Queer Survival

Conclusion: Before the Cock Crows

Notes
Works Cited
Index

Informations

Publié par	State University of New York Press
Date de parution	19 février 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781438451138
Langue	English

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Slouching towards Gaytheism
SUNY series in Queer Politics and Cultures
Cynthia Burack and Jyl J. Josephson, editors
SLOUCHING TOWARDS GAYTHEISM
Christianity and Queer Survival in America
W. C. HARRIS
Cover design by Philip Pascuzzo
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2014 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production by Diane Ganeles Marketing by Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harris, W. C. (William Conley) Slouching towards gaytheism : Christianity and queer survival in America / W. C. Harris. pages cm. — (SUNY series in queer politics and cultures) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4384-5111-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4384-5112-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Homosexuality—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Homosexuality—United States. I. Title. BR115.H6H365 2014 241 .664--dc23
2013021457
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for Karl
“That,” I said, “is the straightest name I ever heard.” “What’s a gay name?” asked Alex. “Dorrinda Spreddem,” I offered.
—Ethan Mordden, “The Straight”
I tell you, the function of a homosexual is to make you uneasy.
—Martha Shelley, “Gay Is Good”
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction:
Where Gays Lie
1. “The End of the Rainbow, My Pot of Gold”:
The Queer Erotics of Purity Balls and Christian Abstinence Culture
2. Breeding Fraternities:
Ex-Gay Ministries, Barebacking, and Alternative Models of Relation
3. Jesus Needs Gays, Yes He Does:
Gay Religion, Queer Spirituality, and the Recalcitrance of Ideology
4. Slouching towards Gaytheism:
Gay Suicide, “It Gets Better,” and Religion’s Stranglehold on Queer Survival
Conclusion:
Before the Cock Crows
Notes
Works Cited
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A s always, my first and greatest debt is to Karl Woelz. His love, intellect, humor, and insight continue to make for a partnership rewarding and sustaining beyond my ability to imagine. Karl, along with colleague and partner-in-crime Dawn Vernooy, was the first to see these pages. Their patience with successive drafts and occasional (and, one hopes, now absent) opacities was surpassed only by the acuity of their suggestions and their willingness to talk through moments of conceptual or diagnostic impasse. I cannot thank or repay them enough. Together with Dawn, Fred Kogan and Craig Bierman went beyond the call of duty in assisting the transition of Karl, me, and our feline dependents to Philadelphia and continue to provide sustenance, laughter, camp commiseration, and a shared love and disdain for all the right things. My mother, Judy Harris, yet again proved her devotion and her proofreading chops. She has supported my work and my life with equal fidelity. Others, in person or through felicitous online connections, supplied the camaraderie and diversion essential to making it through: Laurie and Matthew Cella, Jen Clements, Patrick Dilley, Larry Douglas, Flip Eikner, Scott Hightower, Kim Justis, Roger Loveday, Larry McMahan, Eric Moore, Andrew Owens, Andy Saunders, Mary Stewart, Christopher Strenge, Kate von Goeler, and Bernard Welt.
It has been a pleasure to work a second time with State University of New York Press. The editorial and production team, including Beth Bouloukos, Rafael Chaiken, Diane Ganeles, Fran Keneston, and Anne Valentine, were encouraging, adroit, and continually helpful. Special thanks go to Cynthia Burack and Jyl Josephson, editors of the Queer Politics and Cultures series, for their advice and support. Sincere, constructive feedback from internal as well as outside readers coupled rigorous criticism with inspiring intellectual generosity and was key in realizing the book’s present state.
INTRODUCTION
Where Gays Lie
Q ueer Americans were one of many groups buoyed by the election of Democratic candidate Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008. Eight years of the Bush administration saw the attempted and successful curtailment of civil liberties and rights—through measures as disparate as the violation of wire-tapping laws, the detention of citizens and foreigners in the name of safeguarding national security, and, particularly germane to queer Americans, the passage of state laws and referenda defining marriage heterosexually and depriving same-sex couples of the numerous civil, economic, and social rights enjoyed by straight spouses. By 2010, gay and lesbian Americans and those who support them, as well as an array of progressives, Democrats, independents, and even some Republicans, were ready for change: the reversal of foreign and domestic policies put forward during the previous eight years and true progress on issues of social, economic, and civil equity that had languished under, if not been actively opposed by, the Bush administration and the GOP. “Change—Yes, We Can” was the Obama campaign’s progressive-leaning slogan, after all. Like Clinton in the 1992 presidential race, Obama courted the favor of the GLBT community among other ethnic minorities, political liberals, and other historically Democratic groups. He promised to lift the 1993 ban on gay military service (“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” or DADT), to pass a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) inclusive of gays and lesbians, and, more reservedly, to work for the repeal of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage heterosexually, blocked marriage benefits for gay and lesbian couples, and exempted states from having to honor the marriage licenses granted to same-sex couples in another state.
In the first two years of Obama’s first term, however, the administration appeared to break, actively block, or allow to drift into limbo these promises to the gay and lesbian community. In terms of understanding the neoliberal antipathy to gays and lesbians that has endured through the past several Democratic and Republican administrations, it’s important to recall that Bill Clinton, a Democratic president, signed DADT into law and did so before the 1994 Republican takeover of both congressional houses. DOMA became law after that “revolution,” but Clinton did not employ his veto power. Furthermore, many Democratic senators and representatives fell into lockstep with the Republican majority and voted with it in significant numbers: Democratic senators cast 30 out of 85, or 35 percent, of the “yea” votes for DADT, and the Democratic approval margin in the House was 118 out of 183, or 64 percent. As if DOMA had not sufficiently codified homophobia on the federal level, George W. Bush endorsed the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), a similarly hostile piece of legislation. The preexistence of DOMA, which the FMA would have merely duplicated, explains the latter measure’s repeated failure, and it reveals the FMA as the most extreme form of homophobia. Had it succeeded, it would have enshrined antigay discrimination in the Constitution, a form of legislative homophobia more difficult to eradicate than that of DOMA. Further, the amendment was nothing more than a billy club to whip up homophobia among the GOP’s base as well as conservative Democrats in the lead-up to the 2004 elections. The FMA’s antigay cultural force is undiminished by the fact that, since its first proposal in 2002, it has repeatedly been defeated in the House by strong majorities and has consistently failed to garner enough Senate votes even to be considered on the floor. In spite of being a dismal legislative failure federally speaking, the proposed amendment was a concrete rhetorical success, and, on the level of individual states, a practical victory. Although the FMA came to nothing, its endorsement by the White House and the GOP made gay and lesbian Americans once again a political football. Reviving this wedge issue stoked the fires of homophobia nationally and arguably contributed, in that same election year, to the passage of constitutional amendments or bans against gay marriage in eleven states.
In 2010, two years after Obama’s election and despite Democratic majorities in both congressional houses since 2006, the outlook on change for American queers did not look much more promising. Protracted legal wrangling over both DADT and Prop 8 seemed, pending appeals, to threaten defeat for gay and lesbian equality. By contrast, 2011 and 2012 brought definite movement forward on one of these fronts and promise of the same on the other. The eventual success of DADT’s repeal by Congress in December 2010, which took effect in September 2011, marks concrete progress on one of these fronts—as does the June 2011 victory for marriage equality in New York State. Yet that progress is not guaranteed to be permanent. It remains to be seen whether growing popular support for marriage equality, as with the successful DADT repeal, will translate into substantial, far-reaching action on the federal level. While DADT’s repeal seemed to pass, relatively speaking, with little fanfare or atte