God's Country: A Case Against Theocracy (Haworth Women's Studies) [Hardcover]

Ellen Cole (Author), Esther D Rothblum (Author), Sandy Rapp (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1991 | Series: Haworth Women's Studies

Explore the influence of religion on the privacy rights of U. S. citizens in this controversial new book!

Here is a compelling and controversial new book that explores the enormous political influence that some religious groups currently wield. God’s Country focuses particularly on the issue of personal privacy rights and the strategies and rhetoric these religious groups are using to diminish those rights among select segments of society. Author Sandy Rapp, a grassroots activist, shares her experiences in one-on-one debates with religious fundamentalists who have been on opposite sides of the social issues for which she has so passionately fought in recent years.

Topics in this fascinating book include:

• privacy rights
• individual’s rights as stated in the constitution
• AIDS and homophobia
• the abortion choice
• global population crisis
• gay and lesbian reporductive rights
• effective strategies for lobbying
  
  Sandy Rapp traces the patriarchal premises which underlie the twentieth-century crusade against homosexuality. She integrates various personal and professional perspectives and provides a challenging and comprehensive examination of the physical and psychological devastation inflicted upon women, lesbians, and gay men due to religious and political control over such personal decisions as the expression of one’s sexuality, the use of birth control, the choice of abortion, and privacy rights.
  
  God’s Country poses some provocative questions that are certain to spark debate among enlightened religious professionals, professors, and students of political science, government, women’s history, human sexuality, and religion:
• Does the government have the right to impose mandatory childbirth upon women?
• Should a gay or lesbian person’s sexual orientation weaken his/her civil rights?
• Can, in a free society, the religious beliefs of one denomination or group be imposed on all citizens?
• If freedom for all is to upheld in the United States, shouldn’t the separation of church and state be maintained?

Editorial Reviews

Review

A much-needed primer on the premises of personal privacy underlying lesbian/gay civil rights and reproductive freedom. All personal liberties are dramatically threatened by the contemporary religious right's unending crusade to legislate sectarian beliefs. To read this book is to view these "social issues" from psychological, political, and religious perspectives. A must for Americans interested in preserving their country's historic commitment to freedom for the individual. -- The Honorable Bella Abzug, Former Congresswoman from New York.

A new and compelling book that explores the enormous political influence that some religious groups currently wield. -- Ambush

An important work, Sandy Rapp, with illuminating and incisive historical and contemporary details, brilliantly shows the bizarre dynamics of sexual repression. This book is a classic. -- Karl Grossman, MA Associate-Professor of Journalism, SUNY

Explicitly aimed at people who may not recognize they're under attack or know how to respond. By including sample letters, a resource list, and other aids to action, Rapp encourages readers to get involved. -- New Directions For Women

In a brilliant blend of the scholarly and the colloquial, Sandy Rapp presents a chilling account of the political power of an outspoken minority of religious fundamentalists to limit the rights and choices of women (lesbians and heterosexuals) and gay men. This well-documented study reveals with candor and splashes of humor the extent to which certain religious beliefs, legislative procedures, Presidential actions, and Supreme Court rulings have eroded our freedom, with the potential for even greater damage. Reading is a consciousness-raising experience in outrage. God's Country should be required reading in every college cirriculum. -- Lynn Buck Ph.D. - Retired Professor of Humanities and Women's

The way of dictatorship everywhere begins by enlisting the self-righteous and God-fearing to abolish the moral 'evils' of democratic sexual rights. Dictatorship then encroaches upon all the democratic rights of free citizens as moral 'evils' and abolishes them. Americans today are already imperiled by an excessively dangerous amount of religious dictatorship in government. Read Sandy Rapp's book and awake to the peril. -- John Money, Ph.D. Director, Psychohormonal Research Unit,

Timely, Provocative, Warm witty and Bracing. Sandy Rapp has given us the rare gift of information and wallop, anger and dash. God's Country is a great read, a deeply spiritual correction, a galvanizing book that will help every concerned citizen work to stop the mean-spirited spread of a fundamentalist plague that attacks lesbians, gay men, all women, and every sacred American concept - freedom, liberty, choice, and justice for all. -- Blanche Wiesen Cook, Author:Eleanor Rooselvet, Professor of

With solid research and delicious wit, Ms. Rapp nicely pulverizes the hypocritical posturings of the US anti-privacy rights theocrats. Her take on the Biblical interpretation of Onan, ' the old seed spiller' is reason enough to read and rejoice. There is electric thought on every one of these very readable pages. -- Dolores Klaich, Author, Woman Plus Woman

From the Publisher

A provocative book that addresses the issue of individual's rights in the U.S. today!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 156 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (July 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560241039
• ISBN-13: 978-1560241034
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,231,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.