Sin, Sex, and Democracy: Anti-Gay Rhetoric and the Christian Right (review)

With the overwhelming support of Roman Catholic, Mormon, and Protestant evangelical voters, Proposition 8 passed in California in November 2008, amending the state constitution to prohibit marriage between same-sex couples. For those wondering how these widely disparate believers who advocate Jesus's love could unite to deprive civil rights and enact discrimination against a minority community, Cynthia Burack's fine book offers an insightful analysis. Focusing on white, evangelical Protestants, she explains the complex and at times contradictory theological and political beliefs underlying anti-gay rhetoric of religious conservatives. Moreover, she stresses that opponents of these views should not dismiss them, but seek to comprehend the subtleties and effectiveness of multiple rhetorical strategies. The Christian right must be taken seriously by its critics because its ideology shapes the views and values of a significant portion of Americans. While conservative Protestant evangelicals may never be convinced of the error of their anti-gay ways, she concludes, this "other gay agenda" of listening and understanding will cultivate a stronger democracy and better-informed citizens (142).

Burack asserts her arguments with nuance, humor, and comprehension of Christian theology. She seamlessly integrates queer theory, religious history, communications theory, political science, and evangelical pop culture. She is explicit about her own relationship to the Christian right, having attended a Southern Baptist church as an adolescent while coming out as a lesbian. As a result, she skillfully balances insider sympathy, scholarly critique, and respect for the deeply held beliefs of her subjects. Her analysis focuses on three case studies in anti-gay rhetoric, all familiar to most conservative, white, Protestant evangelicals and to many outside the Christian right: Jack Chick tracts, the ex-gay movement, and characterization of gays and lesbians as terrorists after 9/11.

First, she argues that cartoon evangelistic tracts created by Chick since the 1960s and widely disseminated in evangelical circles foster hostility toward homosexuals with Chick's unambiguous message that they are "perverts" and "sickos." While Christian right leaders distance themselves from Chick as a political liability to developing a broad "family values" movement, she states, they nonetheless rely on him to "stoke the ideological fires" to keep the grassroots committed and enthusiastic (65).

Second, in a chapter co-written with Jyl J. Josephson, she analyzes the therapeutic and Christian rhetoric in Love Won Out (LWO), an ex-gay organization affiliated with Focus on the Family. Using language of compassion, hope, sexual desire, and most critically, "choice," LWO stresses that God does not create gay people. There are only sinful homosexual attractions and behaviors that violate God's intentions for women and men. In response, LWO offers empathy for the pain caused by this attraction and help for change to a heterosexual orientation. LWO denies LGBT identity while affirming heteronormativity. Burack observes that the ex-gay movement ameliorates the harsh stridency of Jack Chick; in it, "compassion rhetoric mixes easily with abomination rhetoric" (98).

Third, she explores the implications of comments made immediately after 9/11 by Christian right leaders Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who blamed " 'the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians' " for attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center (109). Burack argues that while Falwell and Robertson were widely criticized for equating queers with terrorists, their deeper message that tolerance for secularism, immorality, and sin provoked divine wrath was not lost on the evangelical faithful. Therefore, it is Christians' responsibility to avert God's judgment on the United States and halt the spread of immorality, not only through prayer but also through voting for godly candidates like G. W. Bush and against LGBT rights.

Throughout the book, Burack offers three crucial insights. First, she explains how the Christian right reconciles excessive (obsessive?) concern with the imminent end of the world and reforming contemporary U.S. society. Eschatological and "family values" orientations are not mutually exclusive, but on...