Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

We might begin to think about sexual difference not in terms of naturalized identities but as a form of dissent , understood not simply as speech, but as a constellation of nonconforming practices, expressions, and beliefs. Here, again, I am drawing from religion. The right to religious dissent has been understood not solely as the right to belief but as a right to practices expressive of those beliefs. Lisa Duggan, “Queering the State” If there is a God, what is he for anyway? William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying In a lecture for my home institution on the Lawrence decision, I emphasized the need for the queer left to critique seriously the religiously inflected agenda of both its enemies and its friends. I spoke to how the field was missing an opportunity to seriously engage and constructively use certain forms of religious ideology and discourse in decisions and rhetoric about queer acts, queer bodies. I had recently given a version of the same paper at the University of Missouri- Columbia. What is most poignant about both experiences is that while audiences were, to some extent comfortable with being “out” in a public space, those participants who supported my views about religion and atheism in particular only felt comfortable contacting me after the day's discussion, and in “private.” Are we now living in a nation where we have certain sexual freedoms, but not others - like ... log in or subscribe to read full text