| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States. By Craig A. Rimmerman. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002. xiv, 239 pp. Cloth, $69.50, ISBN 1-56639-904-1. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 1-56639-905-X.)

The title of Craig A. Rimmerman's book suggests a textbook on the gay and lesbian movement. In fact, the author, a political scientist, has written a thoughtful study, at once descriptive and prescriptive, that explores the rise, struggles, and future of the gay rights movement. Rimmerman analyzes leading gay and lesbian organizations and their strategies—assimilation, litigation, and direct action—which he finds, to one degree or another, inadequate. The author then explores the Christian Right's crusade against gay rights and closes by calling for an integrated, grass roots–based campaign for a range of progressive issues, including gay and lesbian rights.

Rimmerman's narrative of the gay rights movement is his book's chief strength. General readers will learn about the birth of the homophile movement during the 1950s, court decisions for and against gay rights, the impact of the riot at the Stonewall Inn (1969), and the struggles of the last three decades. His chapter on the Christian Right places the movement in context, offering pungent, even vitriolic, quotations from the opponents of gay rights, including Anita Bryant, who once denounced gays and lesbians as "'human garbage'" (p. 128). He provides a full account of President Bill Clinton's policies toward gays and lesbians and a first look at those of President George W. Bush. The author's prose, often stilted and sometimes repetitive, is hardly compelling. But the basic information on this movement is here.

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