Has the Gay Movement Failed?
by Martin Duberman
Univ. of California Press
246 pages, $27.95
WHEN A WRITER puts a question mark at the end of a title, the answer is usually obvious. Martin Duberman believes the gay movement has failed, or at best has settled for victories unworthy of its potential. Those victories include gay marriage and the right to serve in the military. In the four chapters of this book, both a history and critique of the gay movement since Stonewall, Duberman argues that gaining equal admission to mainstream American society, which became the goal of the gay movement after a brief early period of radical activism, was more a capitulation than a victory. Duberman’s book provokes another question: could gay leaders have been more courageous in their choices?
Daniel A Burr, who lives in Covington, Kentucky, is a frequent contributor to this magazine.
