Gays, Lesbians, & Family Values [Paperback]

Elizabeth A. Say (Author), Mark R. Kowalewski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1998

The religious right claims to be the champions of family values - political shorthand for the reassertion of the "traditional" heterosexual, nuclear family, complete with traditional gender roles of working Dad and stay-at-home Mom raising godly children. Elizabeth Say and Mark Kowalewski present a new view. Exploring not only the ways gays and lesbians live as families but also the values that emerge from their shared experiences, they skillfully construct an ethic of five family values - preserving fidelity, seeking mutuality and accountability, giving life, sustaining identity and community, and nurturing erotic power. These values, the authors suggest, are integral to all intimate relationships. When put into practice, they have the power to transform families from oppressive systems to places of acceptance, growth, and stability.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Pilgrim Press (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0829812881
• ISBN-13: 978-0829812886
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,220,636 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent ethnographic and theological source, July 1, 2000

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"ezmerelda" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gays, Lesbians, & Family Values (Paperback)

GAYS, LESBIANS and FAMILY VALUES offers a very fresh and bold approach to the "family values" dilemma posed by the religious right. The authors, instead of miring themselves in the traditional approach to fighting the right - which has been to try and "fight back" by re-interpreting the Bible as not exactly homophobic, etc. - go out and interview gay and lesbian families and combine that research with a renewed hermeneutics. This, to put it simply - works.

Because their examples draw on research within the commuunity, and across a broad spectrum of the community - the reason for their focus groups - the authors have created a document that allows instructors to walk through the arguments of the religious right step by step. How does an instructor address the following - Do gays and lesbians make good parents? Have good families? Should they get married? If these are the arguments of the religious right - are they born out by ethnographic field work? This book takes the religious arguments out of the merely theological realm and into a realm that students can understand and then evaluate on their own.

The last third of the book as I stated earlier is a renewed look at a, what I would call, theology of corporeality, interpreting the words of Jesus, as meant particularly perhaps for a people who celebrate the corporeal - in this case, gays and lesbians. It is a well-earned hermeneutics and makes sense. It also teaches students how to think theologically and understand theological anthropology, as it comes at the end of, and is based on, their ethnographic study.

I have used this book in classes and have found it very useful in teaching students about ethnography, theology, corporeality and transcendence and issues of embodiment. It also provides a useful tool in the study of gay and lesbian families.

I applaud the authors' work. It really is a landmark volume and I look forward to more work from this team of authors which addresses these very serious issues, especially as the country and our students must grapple with the issue of gay and lesbian marriage. It is crucial at this time that we unpack what "family values" actually means, and how they are actually enacted within homosexual families.