REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS FROM RAUCH AND MOATS: David Garrow

...Rauch is thus no lefty-liberal, nor is he a gay cheerleader. For gays, he says, "marriage will give us the opportunity to become better people, by bestowing upon us the full responsibilities of adulthood." Marriage, he asserts, "will ennoble and dignify gay love and sex" and make gay life "more relationship-oriented" by hastening "the decline of the same-sex underworld." Declaring that "much of what is unique about gay culture . . . is an artifact of marginalization and infantilization," he predicts that "marriage will change homosexual culture more than homosexual culture will change marriage."

Gay Marriage is unfailingly polite and respectful toward opponents, notwithstanding many foes' proclivity for overheated warnings about how same-sex marriages will mean "losing American civilization." Yet Rauch astutely notes how "peculiar" it is that adversaries energetically denounce "the 'homosexual lifestyle' -- meaning, to a large extent, the gay sexual underworld -- while fighting tooth and nail against letting gays participate in the institution which would do the most to change that lifestyle." Rauch is too courteous to observe that this discrepancy suggests that a racist-like loathing of gay people as innately inferior, rather than just a desire to "defend" marriage, may motivate many outspoken opponents. ...

Civil Wars, by David Moats, the editorial page editor of the Rutland Herald, recounts the "political, social, and cultural war" that took place in Vermont during 2000. Moats won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials on the issue, and Civil Wars tells a compelling, emotionally moving story. Moats viewed the Vermont conflict as "the latest tumultuous chapter in a decades-long struggle for civil rights in America," and he compares it to "Birmingham and Selma as landmarks of our growth toward a more complete democracy." Just as in Alabama four decades ago, Moats stresses, hateful behavior by civil rights opponents proved decisive in "touching the conscience" of Vermonters who did not start out as gay rights supporters. ...

...Foul-mouthed homophobles took over a community forum attended by one crucial undecided senator, and the effect was decisive. "The bigots of St. Albans should know we have them to thank for civil unions," another senator explained once the bill passed and was signed into law.

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