Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America
Author: Mel Whit
Few issues divide our country more dangerously today than does the question of homosexuality and the conflict between the concept of family values and the individual rights of gays and lesbians. Families are divided, careers are ruined, lives are lost - all in the struggle between beliefs founded in tradition and those based on personal freedom. Spearheading the fight against the increasingly vocal homosexual community are the leaders of the so-called "religious right," men and women who denounce gays and lesbians from their pulpits and encourage their followers to enact laws against them. Perhaps no one is better qualified to write about these issues and the conflicts they engender than Mel White. He was born into a conservative Christian home and educated in conservative Christian schools and churches. He met his wife there, and together they raised their children to believe in God and to follow a Christian lifestyle. He worked within the church as a filmmaker and writer, and eventually became a ghostwriter of books, autobiographies, and speeches for such noted figures in the religious right as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Billy Graham. But all that time Mel White had a secret. He was gay. In this remarkable book, Mel White looks at his own life in the church and details the struggles he went through to deny and overcome his own natural sexual desires. And in ways sure to anger many of the people he used to know best, he provides a firsthand look at the teachings and workings of the religious right today, showing how they use their power first to politicize their followers and then, using these politics, to spearhead fund-raising efforts. Most specifically, he examines the methods they use to create a campaign of hate and fear against homosexuals. It is a deeply personal story of torment and triumph, as well as a frightening examination of the anti-homosexual tactics of the religious right and a prophetic look at where they might lead our nation. Both aut
Publishers Weekly
White, a former ghostwriter for such prominent Christian conservatives as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Oliver North, details in this melodramatic, sentimental but absorbing autobiography his own troubling, yet ultimately empowering acknowledgement of his homosexuality. White's account of his futile attempts to deny or ``cure'' his desires--through life as a husband and father, through prayer and self-denial, even through shock therapy--is affecting if overdrawn; more interesting is his success in finally reconciling his faith with his sexuality. Such a reconciliation rested in part upon White's recognition that only through distorting the Bible can one find prohibitions against homosexuality there. That White himself, while still closeted and struggling, worked for those most responsible for perpetuating such disinformation is one of the more pungent ironies in the book; it is startling to read that Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell's agitprop denunciation of ``perverts'' purportedly overrode his nobler impulses towards tolerance and compassion. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (Apr.)
Library Journal
This autobiography, read by the author, carries a vital, heartfelt message of topical significance as it portrays a fascinating personal odyssey. For decades the author strove to follow the creed of his conservative Christian family, church, and community. Although he married, had children, and ghostwrote for the Christian right (i.e., the reverends Falwell, Robertson, Graham, Baker; Oliver North; and others), he was gay. He tried every "cure": prayer, self-denial, shock therapy, and analysis but couldn't deny his God-given nature. Now dean of Dallas Cathedral of Hope, the world's largest gay church, he examines the religious right for which he worked. Gays have replaced Communists as the right's scapegoat for fundraising. He's witnessed the consequence: an immense toll of suicides, violence, and self-hatred among gays. The eloquent, spiritual life story of torment and triumph narrated by White and introduced by his wife appeals to all who need to understand identity crises. A successful publicity tour has placed Stranger at the Gate in the national spotlight. Recommended for most public libraries.-James Dudley, Copiague, N.Y.
New interesting textbook: Formação de um Ajudante
The Good Fight
Author: Harry Reid
One of the remarkable books of this season- a tough, plainspoken, deeply passionate narrative by one of our most important national figures.
We all know them: politicians' books that read as if they've been cobbled together from old speeches. The Good Fight is as far from that as it is possible to get.
In a voice that is flinty, real, and passion-filled, Senator Harry Reid tells the tale of two places, intertwining his own story, particularly his early life of deep poverty in the tiny mining town of Searchlight, Nevada-"a place that boasted of thirteen brothels and no churches"-with the cautionary tale of Washington, D.C.: "If I can do nothing greater in this book than explain those two places to each other, then I will have done something important."
Reid is inspired by obstacles. Brought up in a cabin without indoor plumbing, he hitchhiked forty-five miles across open desert to high school. He worked full-time as a Capitol Hill policeman to get through law school, after the school refused him financial aid, telling him he wasn't cut out to be a lawyer. As head of the Nevada Gaming Commission, he led an unrelenting fight to clean up Las Vegas, despite four years of death threats -and much worse. And in Congress, Reid's spent more than twenty-five years battling those who would take the country in the wrong direction: "The radical ideologues degrade our government, so much so that when they are in charge of it, they do not know how to run it."
And, always, it all comes back to Searchlight: "Who I am now, and what I am doing now, began in that town, with those people, in those mines." This book is the story of a man whoknows what a good fight is, because he has had to fight like hell for everything his whole life. It is populated by a rich and raucous cast of great and failed men, eccentrics, visionaries, gangsters, and presidents who make up his life and times. And it is for all those who not only like a good story, but wonder what we should do now in America.
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