| View Larger Image | Straightforward: How to Mobilize Heterosexual Support for Gay Rights | Hardcoverby Ian Ayres (Author), Jennifer Gerarda Brown (Author)
| List Price: | $32.95 | | Price: | $28.17 | | You Save: | $4.78 (15%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | Princeton University Press | | Page Count: | 304 Pages | | Publication Date: | April 18, 2005 | | Sales Rank: | 855,225th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
What can straight people do to support gay rights? How much work or sacrifice must allies take on to do their share? Ian Ayres and Jennifer Brown--law professors, activists, husband and wife--propose practical strategies for helping straight men and women advocate for and with the gay community. Straightforward advances a thesis that is at once simple and groundbreaking: to make real progress at the central flashpoints of controversy- marriage rights, employment discrimination, gays in the military, exclusion from the Boy Scouts, and religious controversies over homosexuality--straight as well as gay people need to speak up and act for equality. Ayres and Brown take aim at both the hearts and minds of the general public, focusing on strategies that can change the incentives and therefore the behavior of the recalcitrant. The book is peppered with stories about real people and the decisions they have faced at home, in church, at work, in school, and in politics. It is also filled with creative legal and economic strategies for influencing public and corporate decision-making. For example, Ayres and Brown propose the development of a "fair employment mark" to help companies advertise inclusive employment policies. They also show how a simple pledge to vacation in states that legalize gay marriage can create powerful incentives for legislatures to amend their marriage laws. Engagingly written and sure to spark debate, Straightforward promises to change the way America thinks about--and participates in--the gay rights movement. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 6 reviews)
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Advocacy by Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)  5 Stars
April 14, 2009
Ayres, Ian and Jennifer Gerada Brown. "Straightforward: How to Mobilize Heterosexual Support for Gay Rights'. Princeton University Press, 2005.
Advocacy
Amos Lassen
Ian Ayres and Jennifer Brown are husband and wife and professors of law. They let us know that there is a population of about 20 million people who are willing to support the GLBT community and they show us how to get their support. Many heterosexuals will hide their own sexual orientation in the interest of activism. They want to make the world a better place.
History has shown us that no civil rights movement is ever won just by those who are the targets of discrimination. The subject of gay rights also includes non-gay rights and all Americans want fair treatment. The authors show how non-gay people can have their voices heard
and use those voices to gain equal rights for all. We are well aware that we need straight allies and they need to speak out as well as act for equality. We must have strategies for them and by changing the incentives and making them inclusive, laws can be changed.
The authors give us real stories about real people and how they have dealt with decisions. There are also examples of how people can be valuable to us.
We must realize that gay people are a small population and our rights depend upon the support of those who are not members of our community. There are benefits for supporting gay people and this book tells how to make this possible. The insight here is absolutely necessary id we want to have the rights we seek. This is a practical book for all of us and its message is one that we must pay attention to. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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Privilege? I wish. by Chema Quinn (guatemala, guatemala GT)  4 Stars
February 05, 2009
I'm a straight person with a serious privilege failure - my wife can't get a visa, so I am an exile. I absolutely sympathize with the fact that this is normal for gay people. But I would nevertheless take up that privilege in a heartbeat, if I could.
The question of privilege is not, do you enjoy privileges which others are denied. If that were true, we should all live life like illegal immigrants or west-bank Palestinians. The question is, are your privileges things that should not or could not be granted to all. The racist country club is the prototypical example: the ability to hang out without those other people around is a stupid privilege on the face of it, and is rightly rejected by all moral people.
There is nothing wrong with most of the contractual, tax, and immigration advantages of marriage, EXCEPT that they are not extended to all people (including homosexuals) equally. So there is no moral benefit to renouncing these privileges. Much much better would be to take them, figure out how much they are worth (in money, time, happiness, unity with extended family, whatever), and then devote some significant fraction of that worth to the cause of extending these rights to all. (And again, I say significant fraction, not all, because these benefits are not evil, they should be enjoyed as well as shared.) So you'd donate money and time; have some uncomfortable conversations with your cousins; and so on. This would be far more effective than just not getting married.
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Mostly Sensible by Peter McCluskey (San Bruno, CA USA) 4 Stars
June 22, 2007
This book provides mostly sensible advice about how to promote gay rights without unnecessarily provoking opponents, and sometimes (but not consistently) without requiring unusual effort on the part of gay rights supporters. Many of the ideas in the book can be applied to other causes that mainly require changing public opinion.
They occasionally go overboard and suggest fighting privileges that don't exist. For instance, they mention favorably advice that heterosexuals boycott marriage until it's available for all. It might make sense to ask heterosexuals to not have their marriages legally recognized (although I doubt the effectiveness of such a strategy). But the suggestion that wedding ceremonies be boycotted as long as gays are excluded from them is silly - wedding ceremonies are very much available to gays today.
Their Fair Employment Mark, under which employers would volunteer to enable employees sue them if they discriminate, would be a great idea under a sufficiently fair legal system. But it's unclear why an employer would consider the U.S. legal system sufficiently fair to agree to this.
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WOW by Mohawk fighter (Ohio) 5 Stars
September 28, 2005
I am a student government senator at a small community college and we have been given the task of rewriting our discrimination policy. This will be a fight but I am glad to know that our library thought enough of students input to order this great book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in not only this cause but others. The ideas can be put to use on so many other issues.
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Privalage gone amok! by Holly L. Blash (pleasanton, ca) 5 Stars
September 26, 2005
I haven't even finished every word but am sartled, amazed even more involved (if possible)! I am now in the"privalaged" world and cannot live without working to insure that ALL families get an "even playing field". The extent of marriage discrimination is appalling! What can be realized by the privalaged (hetro marrieds and singles)and what can be acted upon to alter the inequality is here in this book/manual and I recommed that everyone read it!
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