cover image The Antigay Agenda: Orthodox Vision and the Christian Right

The Antigay Agenda: Orthodox Vision and the Christian Right

Didi Herman. University of Chicago Press, $27.5 (252pp) ISBN 978-0-226-32764-8

Herman provides valuable insight into the American religious right's crusade against gay rights and casts light on conservative Christians' thinking about homosexuality. A lecturer in law at Britain's Keele University, Herman once described herself as a ""Jewish, lesbian, socialist feminist."" But her personal biases don't cloud her incisive examination of 40 years worth of articles on homosexuality in Christianity Today, material from ministries like Focus on the Family, or Colorado's controversial Amendment 2, a measure passed in 1992 to limit gay rights but later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. But her efforts to link opponents of gay rights to the rhetoric of anti-communism and anti-Semitism are inconclusive. And her logic sometimes fails her, as when she says that if Christians really believed gays and lesbians are relatively affluent and powerful, more believers would join the gay ranks. Still, Herman is a capable guide through complex and previously underexplored terrain: the cultural and theological underpinnings of conservative Christians' opposition to gays' growing clout and social acceptance. (May)