Description
White traces the unanticipated consequences as the therapeutic model, gaining popularity after World War II, spurred mainline church leaders to take a critical stance toward rampant antihomosexual discrimination. By the 1960s, a vanguard of clergy began to advocate for homosexual rights. White highlights the continued importance of this religious support to the consolidating gay and lesbian movement. However, the ultimate irony of the therapeutic orthodoxy's legacy was its adoption, beginning in the 1970s, by the Christian Right, which embraced it as an age-old tradition to which Americans should return. On a broader level, White challenges the assumed secularization narrative in LGBT progress by recovering the forgotten history of liberal Protestants' role on both sides of the debates over orthodoxy and sexual identity.
About the Author
Heather R. White is a research scholar and adjunct assistant professor of religion at New College of Florida, USA.
Book Information
ISBN 9781469624112
Author Heather R. White
Format Paperback
Page Count 248
Imprint The University of North Carolina Press
Publisher The University of North Carolina Press