movement

Smash the Church, Smash the State!: The Early Years of Gay Liberation

admin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:51:00 +0000

Like all good memoirs of the 1960s and early ‘70s, Smash the Church, Smash the State! takes readers back to a time when revolution seemed imminent. Change was in the air and the fifty-one essays comprising Tommi Avicolli Mecca’s important anthology vividly capture the heady exhilaration of queer activists on both U.S. coasts as the possibility of being out-and-proud became increasingly tangible.

The book is both a look back and a look forward. Its wide-range includes biographies of several unsung LGBTQ heroes as well as a retrospective of community rebellions—including Stonewall—that presaged the contemporary gay rights movement. Other entries run the gamut, from poetry to manifestoes. There’s an analysis of the persistent racism and sexism that dogged early organizing efforts and an incisive look at the mainstreaming of LGBTQ concerns that ultimately dampened the ardor of queer liberationists. Several essays also offer mournful reflections on the withering of pro-LGBTQ socialist and anarchist groups in favor of political organizations that are less challenging to the social order.

In the book’s first section, "Out of the Bars and Into the Streets," contributors conjure their anticipated liberation from racism, sexism, homophobia, classism and middle-class dreariness. It’s hard not to envy the energy, passion, and daring of thousands of queer activists who challenged authority and brought a constantly evolving understanding of sex and gender into everyday life.

So what happened? The post-Stonewall liberation movement, writes contributor Doug Ireland, was a celebration of otherness, an affirmation that it was okay for queer values and concerns to be different from those of straight society. That sensibility began to wane, he writes, when a swath of the community began arguing for marriage equity and the right to bear and raise children. Many LGBTQ folk also expressed a yearning for spiritual acceptance by the religious bodies they’d been reared in. Some opted to become preachers, lay pastors, or religious educators—and raised a ruckus when they were denied admission. Still others wanted simple domesticity, complete with home ownership, a new car every couple of years, and a family pet. Ireland calls this faction “the gay citizenship movement” and concedes that it edged out the radicals, as if the two poles could not possibly co-exist.

This unresolved tension continues to rankle, and Smash the Church, Smash the State! does a good job of laying out the conflict. At the same time, the essays do little to engage LGBTQ community members who see the American Dream as their birthright. Unconcerned with the issues that galvanized gay liberationists, they want to live conventional lives without being hassled for whom they love.

The activists writing in Smash the Church, Smash the State! are distressed by this, angry that so many LGBTQ people are politically unaware and/or disinterested. I understand their concern and agree that opposition to militarism, war, and the isms that restrict us needs to be disseminated to the widest possible audience. At the same time, when we say we favor non-conformity, it means we support people’s right to make decisions we hate, whether it’s joining the military, becoming a police officer, or moving to the suburbs. The existence of queer Republicans and soldiers may befuddle progressives, but we have no more right than Focus on the Family to dictate who can do what when.

Worse, it’s a losing battle since no one can stop this assimilation. Instead, it behooves those whose lives exemplify the culture of difference—lives beautifully heralded in Smash the Church, Smash the State!—to proudly strut their stuff. What better way to honor the rainbow that has come to symbolize diversity?

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, September 28th 2009

How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism

admin — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:17:00 +0000

By Tina Fetner

University Of Minnesota Press

While leftists and gay rights activists occasionally discuss the notion that left wing battles, and particularly GLBTQ struggles, are too influenced by the religious right, the complaint is always frustrated and dismissive, never a serious consideration. Tina Fetner approaches the notion differently, addressing how the influence of religious right was, in fact, invaluable in shaping, and in rendering more powerful, the lesbian and gay movement. (Both “religious right” and “lesbian and gay movement” are often used casually and defined vaguely, a notion that would normally bother me as a reader, but in the introduction Fetner skillfully clarifies the definitions she is using.)

How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism is an intriguing piece of research, full of facts to which I would otherwise have had no access. Though a self-proclaimed liberal, Fetner has done impressive work on all sides of the problem. She tracks the rise of the religious right even before it took on a formal anti-gay stance, discusses the state of the lesbian and gay movements before the identification of one clear antagonist, and takes us through Stonewall and the rise of Anita Bryant up to the contemporary gay marriage debates. Each chapter chronicles about a decade of the activist conflict, concluding with the notion that “[t]he religious right brought both new challenges and new opportunities to the lesbian and gay movement.”

Fascinating though the concept is, Fetner’s book—a clear doctoral dissertation—is bloodless, the prose dry and uncompelling, the powerful stories rendered inaccessible. The book demonstrates the need for good prose style; the ideas in How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism are notions that all self-styled activists, left and right, should consider, but Fetner’s dry writing makes it tremendously difficult to get through the book.

Nevertheless, the relationship Fetner is examining makes her book worth the effort. Though her book itself may not be a substantive addition to the non-fiction canon, her ideas make a substantial and interesting contribution to queer thought and to social movement theory, whether its consumers be academics or lay readers.

Written by: Gemma Cooper-Novack, October 13th 2008

Ecstasy and the Demon: The Dances of Mary Wigman

admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 00:06:00 +0000

By Susan Manning

University Of Minnesota Press

Through her extensive research, Susan Manning is able to paint a portrait of the person that Mary Wigman was. Her career was based on her development of a unique style of movement which became a strong influence of American modern dance. Mary Wigman refused to conform to the standard norms of dance, she didn’t rely on elaborate costumes and lightning; at times she wouldn’t use music either. She stripped the theatrics from her performances, leaving only her body and face to transmit her message. She shunned the notion of femininity and masculinity in dancing and instead strived for movement and the body’s relation to space.

Her solo performances were powerful exhibits of nonconformity and uniqueness. All of this resulted in the creation of a dancing style truly unique which has transcended throughout time. Both loved and hated by members of the dance community alike, her definition of dance has remained alive in the form of controversy. Some see her as genius, others as a degenerate. One thing that can be agreed on, however, is how different her corporal style was.

In her book, Ecstasy and the Demon: The Dances of Mary Wigman, Susan Manning presents us with her extensive research of Wigman, illustrating the type of intense and driven woman that she was. Manning begins by taking the reader from the early years of Wigman’s life, details her career from beginning to end and discusses the impact she has had on future generations, bringing the effect of Mary Wigman full circle. Her research is as extensive as it is compelling, and she exhibits it as transparent as possible, giving the reader an opportunity to make their own observations as opposed to instilling her own opinion of Wigman. Although at times the text can get rather scholarly and intricate, this a book that can be a great asset to the academic community, dance aficionados and those who just want to read about an interesting woman who decided to follow her own rules and how she has impacted the dance world.

Written by: Jessica Sánchez, May 7th 2007