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On Books and Publishing

My Review of Jo Becker’s Controversial New Book on Gay Marriage

An epic tale of a band of brave heroes and the foolish combatants who dared to try to vanquish them, a kind of gay “Lord of the Rings,” but with men in dark bespoke suits instead of magic armor and cloaks. …

I’m delighted to see my latest in Alternet, a review of the controversial new Jo Becker book,  Forcing the Spring, about the Proposition 8 battle and the history of gay marriage. 

An excerpt: 
Griffin is the hero in Becker’s book, which attempts to be an epic tale of a band of brave heroes and the foolish combatants who dared to try to vanquish them, a kind of gay “Lord of the Rings,” but with men in dark bespoke suits instead of magic armor and cloaks. …

That’s the history of gay marriage that still needs to be written: the story of how a community that once marched for a more radical agenda turned into one led mostly by well-funded, wealthy and powerful organizations and individuals like AFER, HRC, Reiner and Griffin insisting on marriage as “full equality.” It’s also a history of a world where a millionaire like Edith Windsor fights like hell to prevent the government from taxing her inheritance, the taxes on which could contribute to a failing public school system and better roads and go a long way toward the inequality so prevalent in our times.

Read the rest here.