Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America

This succinct, cogent manifesto emphasizes that gay men and women are not seeking new or special privileges, but the ordinary rights of individual liberty and equal protection that Americans enjoy under the Constitution. The authors call for an end to discriminatory practices, anti-gay laws, vicious stereotyping, and the near-invisibility of lesbians and gay men. Resisting the fundamentalist religious right's attack on gays, they argue, constitutes a defense of real religious liberty which is predicated on tolerance and personal freedom in a pluralistic society. Moreover, they insist, the struggle for gay rights is important to everyone: ``What gays and lesbians have to teach other Americans is that morality is how you live and how you conduct yourself, not what you happen to be.'' Nava, a lawyer and writer of mystery novels, and Dawidoff, a history professor at the Claremont Graduate School in Southern California, have produced an eloquent, closely argued benchmark document. (May)