num_pages: 311
description: Philosopher Richard Mohr's articulate exposition of the moral dilemmas facing the gay community, Gay Ideas, addresses, in diverse and often shocking ways, how gays ought to represent and position themselves in the face of an increasingly threatening climate of homophobia, repression, and violence. Includes 36 illustrations.In one of these combative, impassioned, often controversial essays, Mohr, professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois, defends "outing" (making public another person's homosexuality against that person's wishes) as a moral act, a means to prevent gays from participating in their own oppression. Reviewing the Supreme Court's dismal record on gay rights, he argues that the Court's recent decisions on homosexuality are instruments by which federal courts are reversing blacks' civil rights. The author chides the gay activist group ACT-UP for a tendency to embrace "quick leftward-leaning ideological fixes." He interprets the AIDS Quilt commemorating AIDS victims as "a source of ideals," not merely a political statement. Mohr finds homoerotic resonances in Wagner's Parsifal and splices this analysis together with 36 explicit artworks by Robert Mapplethorpe and others in an attempt to show that "gay men have more to offer democracy than democracy has had to offer gay men." He also exposes anti-gay stereotyes as sources of unexamined fear and hatred.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. Mohr (philosophy, Univ. of Illinois-Urbana) has a talent for turning an argument on its head just to see it topple. In this collection of essays on some of the more controversial topics in gay studies, sometimes the argument topples and sometimes it just wobbles a bit. On the future of civil rights laws, Mohr deftly examines the Supreme Court's apparent decision to drop the right to privacy as a Constitutional principle as expressed in the Bowers v. Hardwick case. However, in arguing against the notion of the social construction of homosexuality, Mohr confuses the biological condition of homosexuality with the issue of gay identity and culture. The concept of "outing" closeted gay celebrities and politicians takes on the nobility of a moral crusade despite an unnecessarily complex argument. This book has stirred controversy even before its publication; as reported in the press, it was turned down by nine publishers and 23 printers. Most of the controversy surrounds Mohr's use of explicit, homoerotic illustrations to support the thesis that homosexuality offers society an ideal model for the principle of equality. Recommended for academic libraries or larger public libraries with informed lay readers.- Jeffery Ingram, Newport P.L., Ore.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
language: English
title: Gay Ideas: Outing and Other Controversies
titlecomplete: Gay Ideas: Outing and Other Controversies
genres: Gay, Queer, LGBT
ratings_count: 14
awards: awardedAt: 725875200000
name: Lambda Literary Award
category: Editor's Choice
publisher: Beacon Pr