Gays/justice

Advocate

This ambitious examination of the ethical, legal and social situations of American gays deserves the keen attention of the gay reading public.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

As a cogent brief for gay rights, these philosophically informed essays pull no punches. Mohr believes homosexuals should have stronger civil-rights protection to prevent widespread discrimination in employment, housing and public services. He argues that anti-gay discrimination ``in good faith'' in the army, police forces and schools is actually prejudice in bad faith, built around invidious stereotypes of homosexuals. A gay activist and professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois-Urbana, Mohr rips the insurance industry and the federal government for their handling of the AIDS crisis. He opposes the closing of gay bathhouses as immoral and condemns sodomy laws as an assault on human dignity. In his diagnosis, the call for mandatory AIDS testing is motivated by a need to put down gays and re-assert heterosexual supremacy in our uptight society. Despite considerable overlap in the essays, they are admirably succinct and readable. (Nov.)