Is Gay Good?

But Hirshman aims to say something stronger, more interesting, and even more provocative than proclaiming victory for the equal rights of gay people. ?The movement succeeded,? she writes, ?uniquely and in large part because, at the critical moments, its leaders made a moral claim.? That claim was not simply a demand to be left alone but an insistence on society?s recognition of their ?virtue? on wholly equal terms with everybody else. Being gay would no longer be something that?s merely tolerated in a liberal state that made room for any kind of freak; LGBT equality would no longer mean the dominant society would hold its nose while granting rights to members of a group it despised. Instead, it would mean embracing gay and transgender people as equally worthy of respect and dignity. ?The gay movement was stuck with two choices,? writes Hirshman about the post-Stonewall era. ?They could ask the society to ignore or tolerate their behavior, immoral or not, in the interests of higher values like freedom or privacy.? Or they could insist that they and their actions were moral, that, in short, ?gay is good.?

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