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THE
LATEST
BOOK
by
Richard
D.
Mohr,
a
gay
professor
of
philosophy
at
the
University
of
Illinois-Urbana,
is
a
clever
and
insightful
explanation
of
how
and
why
political
and
social
conservatives
opposed
to
gay
civil
rights
are
wrong
about
gay
and
lesbian
issues.
But
sometimes
the
book,
“The
Long
Arc
of
Justice:
Lesbian
&
Gay
Marriage,
Equality,
&
Rights,”
is
debatably
too
clever
for
its
own
good.
Mohr’s
arguments
feel
tricky
and
even
distracting
at
times,
although
in
the
end,
they
support
his
position
well.
The
peculiar
and
colorful
analogies
scattered
throughout
the
text
are
accessible
and
interesting,
but
generally
more
memorable
than
the
author’s
conclusions.
FOR
EXAMPLE,
MOHR
points
out
that
derogatory
slurs
fall
into
several
categories,
including
those
that
refer
to
a
person’s
actions
and
those
that
refer
to
their
social/cultural
status.
He
draws
this
distinction
to
advance
the
argument
that
gay
people,
especially
gay
men,
are
called
names
that
point
out
their
place
in
society,
rather
than
their
actions.
Examples
of
these
slurs
include
“pansy,”
“fruit,”
and
“fruitcake,”
terms
most
likely
heard
among
much
older
generations.
Mohr
intends
to
demonstrate
that
gay
men
do
not
exhibit
any
actual,
behavioral
similarities
to
the
images
these
insults
literally
denote.
He
points
out
that
people
who
use
these
“vegetative”
slurs
would
probably
realize
the
literal
absurdity
of
comparing
man
with
fruit,
a
flower,
or
a
holiday
dessert
if
only
they
bothered
to
think
about
it.
One
of
several
underlying
problems
is
that
people
using
slurs
like
these
often
fail
to
consider
how
the
metaphor
gay-man-as-fruit
affects
the
place
of
all
gay
people
in
society.
With
this
in
mind,
Mohr
argues
that
the
origin
of
anti-gay
sentiments
is
both
elusive
and
illogical.
“Stereotypes
and
[other]
hostile
attitudes
toward
gay
men
and
lesbians
are
not
so
much
the
effects
of
misperceiving
…
of
getting
lesbians
and
gays
wrong,
but
more
so
are
what
causes
the
misperception
of
them,
and
in
turn
the
mistreatment
of
them,”
he
writes.
From
this
it
follows
that
in
America,
“Real
[straight]
men
are
unassailable,”
Mohr
writes.
“Their
antipode
down
at
the
bottom
of
the
human
heap
is
vegetable
existence
—
pansies,
fruits,
and
the
physically
challenged,
who,
like
gay
men,
are
also
typically
…
demoted
with
vegetative
slurs.”
The
point
of
this
passage
is
easy
enough
to
grasp,
and
the
argument’s
contents
are
familiar
to
most.
But
Mohr
goes
on
to
spell
everything
out
in
a
concise,
if
lofty,
conclusion:
“All
of
[these
slurs]
derive
from
the
cosmic
order
‘vegetable,’
and
vegetables
don’t
do
anything.”
In
a
subsequent
passage,
Mohr
highlights
the
absurdity
of
denying
parents’
rights
to
gay
men
and
lesbians
in
child
custody
cases
with
a
more
resonant
but
equally
colorful
analogy.
“No
one
would
seriously
suggest
that
a
fat
mother
or
a
Mormon
mother
should
lose
custody
of
her
child
because
the
child’s
friends
might
well
tease
the
child
about
her
mother’s
size
or
religion,”
he
writes.
Throughout
the
book,
Mohr
makes
his
points
well.
But
then
he
makes
one
chuckle
by
elaborating
about
entertaining
images
like
animate
vegetables
and
fruitcake.
The
flaw
is
a
particularly
unfortunate
one,
since
the
quest
for
gay
and
lesbian
rights
isn’t
very
funny.
“The
Long
Arc
of
Justice”
isn’t
going
to
change
the
world,
but
people
who
read
and
understand
it
will
be
better
equipped
to
do
so.
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