Summary
Title: Perfect Enemies: The Religious Right, the Gay Movement, and the Politics of the 1990s
Author: Chris Bull and John Gallagher
Publisher: Madison Books
ISBN: 1568331789
Pro:
• Interesting comparison reveals more similarities than activists would like to admit
• Emphasizes the importance of not demonizing others
Con:
• The two sides are not exactly equal in their rhetoric, hatred, or misrepresentations
• Some has changed since the book was written
Description:
• Juxtaposition of pro-gay and anti-gay rhetoric in American politics
• Argues that gay activists and anti-gay evangelicals sound remarkably alike
• Explains that harsh rhetoric encourages misunderstandings
Book Review
For gay activists, the debates of things like gay rights are crucial to defining who they are as citizens. They see themselves engaged in a titanic struggle not unlike that of Civil Rights during the 1960s, and because their very position as members of the community is at stake, this isn’t something they are going to let go of. In the process, they demonize their opponents as bigots and fascists bent on establishing a theocracy in America.
Who are these bigots and fascists? No less committed to their own religious cause are conservative and evangelical Christians for whom gay rights generally and gay marriage specifically are signs of the downfall of Christian civilization in the West. It would not be going too far to suggest that, in their eyes, the normalization of gays’ place in society represents everything that has ever gone wrong in America. They may love gay family members and friends, but they abhor homosexuality and are determined to see that it be put back in the closet for good.
The conflict between these two groups is the subject of Perfect Enemies: The Religious Right, the Gay Movement, and the Politics of the 1990s, by Chris Bull and John Gallagher. The thesis of this book is twofold: first, that each group has gone out of its way to demonize the other until any sort of mutual understanding has become impossible, and second, that the existence of each group has become largely based upon the existence of the other. In effect, each group is defined by the other such that they have developed a symbiotic, even parasitic, relationship in which each would be lost if the other disappeared.
In a sense, these two theses are themselves deeply interconnected because it is the extremist rhetoric which has caused the symbiotic relationship. Neither side describes the other as one which simply disagrees; instead, each side describes the other as an enemy which cannot be tolerated. The emotional, psychological, and rhetorical investment in the attacks is so great that the ability to say anything that isn’t an attack has become lost. If they cannot use the evils of other side to scare people, there isn’t anything left to say.
