Research Catalog

Title

Dying to be normal : gay martyrs and the transformation of American sexual politics / Brett Krutzsch.

Author

Krutzsch, Brett, 1979-

Publication

• New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 249 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

• " On October 14, 1998, five thousand people gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to mourn the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who had been murdered in Wyoming eight days earlier. Politicians and celebrities addressed the crowd and the televised national audience to share their grief with the country. Never before had a gay citizen's murder elicited such widespread outrage or concern from straight Americans. In Dying to Be Normal, Brett Krutzsch argues that gay activists memorialized people like Shepard as part of a political strategy to present gays as similar to the country's dominant class of white, straight Christians. Through an examination of publicly mourned gay deaths, Krutzsch counters the common perception that LGBT politics and religion have been oppositional and reveals how gay activists used religion to bolster the argument that gays are essentially the same as straights, and therefore deserving of equal rights. Krutzsch's analysis turns to the memorialization of Shepard, Harvey Milk, Tyler Clementi, Brandon Teena, and F. C. Martinez, to campaigns like the It Gets Better Project, and national tragedies like the Pulse nightclub shooting to illustrate how activists used prominent deaths to win acceptance, influence political debates over LGBT rights, and encourage assimilation. Throughout, Krutzsch shows how, in the fight for greater social inclusion, activists relied on Christian values and rhetoric to portray gays as upstanding Americans. As Krutzsch demonstrates, gay activists regularly reinforced a white Protestant vision of acceptable American citizenship that often excluded people of color, gender-variant individuals, non-Christians, and those who did not adhere to Protestant Christianity's sexual standards. The first book to detail how martyrdom has influenced national debates over LGBT rights, Dying to Be Normal establishes how religion has shaped gay assimilation in the United States and the mainstreaming of particular gays as "normal" Americans. "--
• "The first book to detail how gay martyrs influenced national debates over LGBT rights, Dying to be Normal establishes how religion shaped gay assimilation in the United States and the mainstreaming of particular gays as "normal" Americans worthy of equal rights"--

Subjects

• Martyrs
• Gay activists
• Martyrs > United States
• Sex > United States
• HISTORY / Social History
• Gay activists > United States
• Homosexuality > United States > Religious aspects > Christianity
• RELIGION / Religion, Politics & State
• Homosexuality > Religious aspects
• United States
• Biographies
• RELIGION / Sexuality & Gender Studies

Genre/Form

Biographies.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-237) and index.

Contents

Introduction: Memorialization, gay assimilation, and American religion -- The "Gay M.L.K." : Harvey Milk -- The "Crucifixion" of "anyone's gay son" : Matthew Shepard -- The "epidemic of bullying and gay teen suicide" : Tyler Clementi and It Gets Better -- "The place where two discriminations meet" : race, gender, and the threat of violence -- Epilogue: The Pulse Nightclub Massacre and the queer potential of memorialization.

Call Number

JFE 19-6830

ISBN

• 9780190685218
• 0190685212

LCCN

2018037004

OCLC

1047660829

Author

Krutzsch, Brett, 1979- author.

Title

Dying to be normal : gay martyrs and the transformation of American sexual politics / Brett Krutzsch.

Publisher

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]

Copyright Date

©2019

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-237) and index.

Other Form:

Online version: Krutzsch, Brett, 1979- Dying to be normal New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2019 9780190685225 (DLC) 2018051507 (OCoLC)1060182590

Research Call Number

JFE 19-6830