Gay Rights and Moral Panic: The Origins of America's Debate on Homosexuality

by Fred Fejes

Using the 1977 campaign against the Dade County Florida gay rights ordinance as a focal point, this book provides an examination of the emergence of the modern lesbian and gay American movement, the challenges it posed to the accepted American notions of sexuality, and how American society reacted in turn.

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction, History, Politics

290 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2008

Reviews

[Fred Fejes]

My review is a bit biased as I wrote this book. So here's a read from someone else who read it and commented on Amazon:

I received this book as a Christmas gift from a friend and found it to be both compelling and informative.
The book centers on the Anita Bryant campaign and how this campaign mobilized the gay community to act politically on a national level. On a broader level, this book details the media's portrayal of gays prior to and after the campaign and how this shaped attitudes towards "homosexuals". Additionally, this book discusses the campaigns that occurred subsequently in other cities and how these campaigns shaped the formation of the religious right.
This book is detailed and academic, but it is also crafted for the non-academic reader interested in a well told story. Anyone with an interest in history or politics will enjoy this book, and it is an excellent companion to the movie "Milk".
The only drawback is the price of the book.

[Blane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone trying to figure out how we ended up with the anti-intellectualism, ignorance, and bigotry of today's batch of hypocritical moralizers like Sarah Palin & Michelle Bachmann need look no further than this account of Anita Bryant's 1977 crusade to "Save Our Children" (which, apparently only extended to heterosexual children). The template for all messianic bigots to follow was firmly put in place with this successful Florida campaign.

[Ainsley Petrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for a history class research project. Looooots of editing issues with typos, incorrect punctuation, and odd sentence structures throughout. Almost didn’t continue reading after seeing a typo in the second sentence. Had the editing been better, I may have given it five stars.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

from the library -----should combine the hardcover review with this review --don't think I actually ever had the hard cover


This book is not only inadequate--don't get me started-- it is now out of date.

from the library computer:
Contents:
Acknowledgements
1 Lesbians, gay men and the minority rights revolution
2 The strange media career of the homosexual
3 Gay rights come to Miami
4 The campaign begins
5 The vote
6 St. Paul, Wichita, Eugene
7 California, Seattle, Miami (2)
8 The gay rights debate
Notes
Index

[Isaac Timm · Rating 4 out of 5]

I great secondly source for this watershed moment in the gay rights movement. The one disagreement would be the author under-sales the effects of the christian right on the hate a fear perpetrated on those with AID's, as smaller and localized, or not related fully to gay and Lesbian rights as whole. This is probably due to Fejes' focus on the period of 1977-79 and that AID and the movement around it had and has it's own issues at play.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

from the library




from the library computer

Contents:
Lesbians, gay men and the minority rights revolution --
The strange media career of the homosexual --
Gay rights come to Miami --
The campaign begins --
The vote -- St. Paul, Wichita, Eugene -- California, Seattle, Miami (2) --
The gay rights debate.