God hates fags
Subtitle: the rhetorics of religious violence
By: Michael Cobb.
Series: Sexual cultures
Publisher: New York University Press; NYU Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 229
ISBN-13: 9780814716694; 9780814716687
Subjects: Homosexuality -- Religious aspects -- Christianity; Rhetoric -- Religious aspects -- Christianity; Homosexuality -- Political aspects -- United States; Rhetoric -- Political aspects -- United States; Hate speech -- United States
Description: "At the funeral of Matthew Shepard-the young Wyoming man brutally murdered for being gay-the Reverend Fred Phelps led his parishioners in protest, displaying signs with slogans like "Matt Shepard rots in Hell," "Fags Die God Laughs," and "God Hates Fags." In counter-protest, activists launched an "angel action," dressing in angel costumes, with seven-foot high wings, and creating a visible barrier so one would not have to see the hateful signs." "Though religion has long been thought of as one of the most virulently anti-gay genres of contemporary American politics and culture, in God Hates Fags, Michael Cobb maintains that religious discourses have curiously figured as some of the most potent and pervasive forms of queer expression and activism throughout the twentieth century. Cobb focuses on how queers have assumed religious rhetoric strategically to respond to the violence done against them. He alternates close readings of writings by James Baldwin, Tennessee Williams, Jean Toomer, Dorothy Allison, Alice Walker, and Stephen Crane with discussions of critical race theory, queer theory, political theory, and critical legal theory to illuminate the rhetorical opportunities embedded in religious hate speech. He pays special attention to significant Supreme Court cases, anti-gay legislation, and the political strategies, public declarations, websites, interviews, and other media made by key religious right believers and organizations that have mounted the most successful regulations and condemnations of homosexuality. God Hates Fags teaches us, quite strangely, that hate, more than love and tolerance, is what queers, now more than ever, might need the most. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-216) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : the last safe group to hate; title: The language of national security : a queer theory of religious language; title: James Baldwin and his queer, religious words; title: Like a prayer; title: Rights as wrongs; title: Conclusion : our aberrant future.