The Attack Queers: Liberal Society and the Gay Right - Hardcover

"Hooray for Richard Goldstein! The Attack Queers is a brilliant ... and brilliantly written ... polemic against the rising tide of heartless gay conservatism and its 'liberal' straight allies. The Attack Queers is a much-needed call to arms for progressives of all stripes to rally before it's too late."--Martin Duberman, author of Stonewall "Besides its sheer cogency, the most notable thing about The Attack Queers is, surprisingly, the generous patience with which it anatomizes the gay right. Far beyond the hackneyed invocation of 'internalized homophobia, ' Goldstein embarks on an incisive navigation of the historical, racial, and psychological dynamics between queers and mainstream American political discourse."--Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, author of Epistemology of the Closet "Richard Goldstein's The Attack Queers is a lucid, finely written, generously balanced polemic that retrieves the gay movement's long, variegated history and its alliances with other oppressed minorities. Goldstein persuasively argues that the suppression of this history in public discussions of 'gay issues' has empowered gay versions of Clarence Thomas, pontificating from the bully pulpits of talk shows and mass circulation magazines to prescribe their own mimicry of straight people as model behavior for everyone else. Whatever their actual influence, Andrew Sullivan, Camille Paglia, and other spokespersons for nobody offer the Orwellian spectacle of conformity posing as iconoclasm."--Gary Indiana, author of Depraved Indifference and Resentment "Goldstein takes on the right-wing queer media darlings Andrew Sullivan, Camille Paglia, Norah Vincent et al. with insight and up-to-the-minute urgency. It's about time someone took some of the hot air out of their inflated balloons."--Esther Newton, author of Mother Camp and Cherry Grove, Fire Island "Whether you think you will agree with the main argument or not, you will learn from this book. Richard Goldstein writes with shrewd insight, wide sympathies, and enviable clarity. No one has a more persuasive assessment of the urgencies of the present and the legacies of the past for queer people. I wish everyone I know ... gay, straight, or whatever ... would read it."--Michael Warner, author of The Trouble with Normal and editor of Fear of a Queer Planet

For most of its history the American gay movement has been part of the democratic left, but in recent years a more affluent group of gay men have begun to make its mark. Although Conservatives are a minority in the queer community, they have become the loudest voice in the mainstream media. These conservative voices are changing the gay movement's public image with their withering contempt for feminism and radical politics, and in Britain they also have a strong voice in domestic politics. "Attack Queer" offers a critique of the gay right agenda, and describes how it differs from the one long embraced by the queer community.