Michael Warner (1) (1958–)

Accessibly written and interesting, but has a number of flawed premises which lead to wrong conclusions. Warner's essential argument is that we should resist the "normalization" of queer folks -- in particular through marriage -- because queer culture, rather than being bad, has much to redeem it, in particular with regard to sexual liberation.

The problem with his argument is that it takes as a given that there is such a thing as queer or even gay culture, and that certain things are endemic show more to that culture. The reality is that there are numerous queer cultures and subcultures, some of them delimited by gender (e.g., stereotypically lesbian culture is certainly distinct from stereotypically gay culture), and other by other factors (e.g., queer punk). To suggest that certain features of what he terms gay or queer culture should be embraced by everyone is to assume the existence of a uniform way of being queer.

Moreover, Warner fails to address the crucial question of whether, even assuming that such a uniform queer culture exists, queer culture can be extricated from the oppression that created it. Counterculture cannot exist absent the existence of a "mainstream" culture -- Yiddish came into being as the result of the oppression of the Jewish people and their segregation into ghettos; likewise, much of what we now conceive of as "gay culture" or "queer culture" is the product of the marginalization of queer people. Yet Warner never struggles with whether embracing this legacy of oppression is problematic. show less

In The Trouble with Normal (1999), Michael Warner explains how shaming and the stigma around certain sexual acts and desires serves to harm the dignity of queers — this shaming is done both by moralists and the "good homosexuals." By dignity, Warner means that inherent part of ourselves that is the human (36). Warner proposes a politics around shame, understanding that many identities are formed around shame. From Goffman he offers to responses to shame: the stigmaphile, those who learn to show more value what society shames, and the stimaphobe, those who aspire to normalcy. Normal, of course, wouldn't be bad if it were just a statistical norm, but normal is the value placed around this supposed norm and the attempt to strive for it, and shame those who do not. This is why Warner opposes gay marriage: because it affirms this norm and shames and make more difficult other possibilities for relationship-creating. People understand gay marriage as a private institution, but it is really a public one (107). For Warner, "If there is such a thing as a gay way of life, it consists in these relations, a welter of intimacies outside the framework of professions and institutions and ordinary social obligations" (116). Warner also exposes the loss of public spaces through government intervention and markets, and argues that "the politics of privatization . . . destroys real privacy even as it erodes public activity" (172). He outlines 13 different senses in which the dichotomy of public and private work, as well as three other senses of private that do not have a corresponding sense of public (172-3). show less

Articulate and impassioned, Warner, a professor of English at Rutgers University, confronts what he views as the current trend toward sexual conservatism in gay and lesbian politics. Responding directly to books such as Andrew Sullivan's Virtually Normal and Gabriel Rotello's Sexual Ecology, as well as to advocates of legalizing gay and lesbian marriage and of closing down bathhouses and other sex venues, Warner claims that the gay movement has embraced an ethic of 'sexual shame' and show more de-emphasized gay sexuality in an attempt to win mainstream approval. Instead of targeting gay sex, Warner argues, the gay movement should be 'combating isolation, shame, and stigma.' show less

I don't care if you are a preacher, pastor or layman. This book is a fantastic resource, a testimony to the American ideal of religous expression. From Edwards, to Joseph Smith, it captures some of the most beautiful and important sermons ever given...they just so happen to be on this continent.