Edmund White On Same-Sex Marriage

In the New York Review of Books, Edmund White reviews three books about same-sex marriage, including “Redeeming the Dream,” by David Boies and Ted Olson. White writes: ‘On the last page of “Redeeming the Dream,” we are told that Americans are accepting “gays and lesbians…as normal, loving, decent members of our lives and our communities.” I shouldn’t quibble, but as a gay man in his seventies I don’t quite recognize in that description most of the flamboyant, creative, edgy, promiscuous, deeply urban gays I have known. Kenji Yoshino, a law professor, wrote a book called Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights in which “covering” is seen as downplaying a discordant trait in order to blend into the mainstream. It seems to me that gays are in danger of “covering” in order to obtain the permission to marry. Perhaps that’s a small enough price. I can’t decide.’

Leave a Comment