Gallagher and Bull have a good point to make here, offering numerous quotes and instances demonstrating how both sides have demonized each other. Neither takes the time to try to understand where the other side is coming from or why they believe as they do. There is, however, one problem: although the authors would like to describe some level of parity between the two, in the end they can’t.
The examples of Christians demonizing gays are nastier and far more numerous than of gays demonizing Christians. Moreover, more than a few of the attacks made by gays about the Christian Right are disturbingly accurate — something that the authors are forced to acknowledge more than once. These same Christian groups once had communists to attack, but today communism is largely a dead issue. They need a new enemy and if they didn’t have the gays to hate, they’d have to invent some group to fit their needs.
- “While the early Christian right groups were motivated primarily by anti-Semitism, anticommunism, and the defense of racial segregation, they also expressed fear about changes in the nuclear family and the relationship between the sexes. By the 1970s, when open espousals of anti-Semitism and racism were no longer socially acceptable, blacks and Jews were largely replaced by gays and feminists.“
The book is several years old by this point, but no less interesting because of it. One thing that stands out is how much more extreme and nastier comments from Christians were during the 1980s and 1990s than they tend to be today — quite often the authors quote statements that would not as likely be made today except in narrower circles. This is a sign of how far society has come already.
The nastiness from gay rights activists, however, is also much less frequent. Today, we are far more likely to see positive arguments in defense of gay rights rather than simply fear-mongering. That’s not to say, however, that fear-mongering is wholly inappropriate — should some of the Christian Right gain power, we’d all have a great deal to be afraid of. Whenever the Christian Right loses on gay rights, they also lose a bit of power and prestige — and that means everyone else wins.
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