The Stranger Next Door: The Story of a Small Community's Battle over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights; Or, How the Right Divides Us

by Arlene Stein

In The Stranger Next Door , Alrene Stein explores how a small community with a declining industrial economy became the site of a bitter battle over gay rights. Fearing job loss and a feeling of being left behind, one Oregon town’s working-class residents allied with religious conservatives to deny the civil liberties of queer men and women. In a book that combines strong on-the-ground research and lucid analysis with a novelist’s imaginative sympathy, Stein’s exploration of how fear and uncertainty can cause citizens to shift blame onto “strangers” provides insight into the challenges the country faces in the age of Trump.

Winner of the 2001 Ruth Benedict Award

Genres: Nonfiction, LGBT, Gender, Politics

280 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

Reviews

[Charlie Weissman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise was fascinating and I really enjoyed hearing about how she went about doing the research on this issue. I love zooming into these niche case studies to understand the state of US politics today and how seemingly small issues are broadened into massively divisive issues. In this case, a non-issue was made into an issue by an outside group playing on people’s fears. I think the author did a great job setting the scene of the history of the town in terms of economics and religion and how they got into the spot they found themselves in. Additionally, this was published in 2001 and took place in the 1990’s, so it was disconcerting/comforting to know that divisive politics playing on people’s religious affinities are not new to the era that I’ve been alive in. Also, I have always associated the PNW with liberal residents, so it was interesting to see the flip-side of that: rural/‘forgotten’ Oregon. There were lots of factors at play here and the author did a great job setting job diving into each while weaving in anecdotes from her interviews with those involved.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Timbertown, Oregon, has a small gay population, and no activist gay community. Yet in the early '90s, the issue of gay rights split the town in two when a ballot initiative asked the city council not to recognize gay individuals as possessing rights that needed protection. Conservatives charged that gay rights were "special interests" and would undermine family, community, and nation; liberals argued that equality was the main issue; both sides duked it out in street protests, letters to the editor, petitions, rallies, and pressure on the school board and city council.

Arlene Stein seeks to understand why the town split as it did. Her work is exhaustive, her interviews with city residents expansive, and her patience for listening to the foibles of either side seemingly limitless. Stein found that the ballot initiative happened at a time when much was changing in Timbertown - jobs were scarce; immigrants from Cambodia and Latin America were trickling into town; "outsiders" (generally from California) were buying up property and changing what the small town was like; there were cultural shifts regarding gender roles in family and society. All of this caused many Timertowners anxiety, an anxiety they displaced by setting up gay people as their definitive "other" and working to stop "special interests" taking over their town.

Stein's book is particularly interesting for the time and compassion it devotes to both sides in this debate. Rather than Bible-thumping demagogues, the conservatives in the book emerge as people who do not see the world as stable, and who worry about change, who - if you buy Stein's argument - feel shame, and who are genial and nice to people they meet face-to-face. Liberals are outraged by their beliefs, but fail to see that so much of their behavior springs from anxiety - that pounding out a message of diversity is unlikely to sway anyone who already fears that diversity has been thrust upon them.

There's a great deal in this book to ponder, from the use of Hitler analogies by both sides, to the limitations of a "rights" oriented movement. It's a rare and very readable book.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this kind of sociological study, and it's amazing that it was published in 2001.
1) this book speaks a lot to the origins of the horrific polarizations of our time. (and their being spurred by ruthless right wing organizers)
2) Stein understands complex issues of sexual orientation and gender identity with empathy and subtlety and her discussion was helpful to my understanding of these issues twenty years after the book came out.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This well-researched and thoughtful book about the struggle over gay/lesbian rights in a small timber town in Oregon is very insightful about the role of religion, anomie, economic downturn, boundary maintenance, and distrust/hatred of the other. It was valuable, but disheartening, to read how the culture wars of our own era have their ugly roots in this earlier conflict.

[Jessica DeMocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

The update given the current political scene was well written and the questions asked through out the text echo those I’ve heard from so many others.

While I have studied the “other” in the context of feminism, the application to extreme right politics is spot on.

[Shannon Wyss · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, excellent analysis of how and why the campaign against "special rights for homosexuals" took off the way it did in one small Oregon town in the early 1990s. Based on in-depth interviews with people in the community, Stein uses the lenses of economics, sociology, and religious studies to dissect the tensions in "Timbertown" and how the changes in the community lead to this battle being one that spoke to so many.

While much has changed in the ensuing 20+ years, the rhetoric that appealed to many Timbertowners back then still speaks to many, many people today. They might be a decreasing segment of the US as more and more LGBT people come out. But they are still out there, either ensconced in their homophobia or swayable in the middle. Relatedly, the rhetoric of assimilation and "we're just like you" used by LG people and their allies in Timbertown then is still widely -- and very problematically -- used today.

My biggest complaint about her book is that, like so many books written on the LGBT community, this is really a book about people who are LG. While the exclusion of trans folks from "The Stranger Next Door" is appropriate both because of the community's nascence in the early 1990s and because the campaign wasn't about transgender, the invisibilization of bisexual people is inexcusable. It speaks to the biphobia pervasive in the LG community, a biphobia to which Stein had, at least at the time, apparently fallen victim. There is no reason not to mention bi people when discussing sexual orientation and to discussing the particular kinds of prejudice and experiences that bisexuals have. Shame on all authors who fall into that.

That aside, however, i highly recommend Stein's book. It is a fantastic recent history that remains relevant in the 2010s. Please go read this book!

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at a major crossroads between the conservative right and liberal left: sexuality and civic rights.

I liked both the content and form of the book. While it took a little while to read, Stein is informative and enlightening on the relationship between whiteness, masculinity, economics, "community," and sexuality. Stein also delicately locates herself within the project in ways that remind me how good research can be done.

Nice weaving of much of the sexuality studies and gender reading I've done in the past few years, as well as current events info on the Cristian right.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Examines the people of "Timber Town" (Cottage Grove, Oregon) as the battle over an Oregon Citizen's Alliance (an anti-gay, religious right-wing group) ballot measure targeting the GLBT community. Stein manages to talk with people on both sides of the issue about religion, economics, and how culture effects the debate. When she waxes academically about insider/outsider status and how groups define themselves, the writing is good. But, Stein herself suffers from a class, urban bias that sours her insights and undermines any credibility she had talking about small town folk.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent! This book is really interesting, informative, and easy to read!

[Kate Ditzler · Rating 4 out of 5]

MC 380