It tooks about four pages to suspect that TImbertown is the town in which I live -- and a couple of more references for me to confirm it. I picked up the book not so much because it was a dicourse on homosexuality and politics but because it addressed the grass roots philospohy and tactics of a conservative Christian political movement. Being neither gay or very conservative, I found the book to be a well written insight into community relations, politics, gay politics, gay non-politics, the devlopment of evagelicalism in the West, and the politics of the far right. I also had a great time trying to figure out who the pseudonyms were. This aside --the Timbertown situation is representative of a lot of small town in many states

Inherent in the Fundamenalist view is the assumption that ethical principles come together harmoniously and do not meaningfully conflict. Indeed, conflict is seen as a test of one's ability to adhere to these moral priniciples. Thus, Fundamentalism knows the answers and isn't particularly open to persuasion--or so it would seem. However, Stein's sympathetic interviews reveals a different story about the Fundamentalists who launched a charter amendment against 'special rights' for gays and lesbians in a small, Oregon town where there weren't many gays and lesbians to speak of. Here, we meet Christian Fundamentalist women who weren't particularly close minded; felt uncertain about their principles; regretted the conflict they engendered; and, in some sense, felt an unacknowledged sense of shame. For reasons which are probably not very far from view, they just couldn't accept pluralism--mostly because it didn't speak to their insecurities. Those seeking insight into the present turn in American and feminist politics would do well to read and take heed!

Arlene Stein is a professor of sociology who moved to Oregon in 1994, a time when rural Oregon was in the surprising position of coming to terms with homosexuality. She tells how this happened to "Timbertown" (a pseudonym, and she has used pseudonyms for all the town residents) in The Stranger Next Door: The Story of a Small Community's Battle over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights_ (Beacon Press), a balanced history of a contemporary controversy. Timbertown was a logging community, and in the eighties the economy turned bad for it. Newcomers came to the region, some in communes, and in the bad economy, didn't always get along with the long term timbermen. Among the newcomers were homosexuals, not many, to be sure, and most of them were women who blended into the community so that most others hardly knew. When the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA), an outside agency powered by Christian fundamentalism, came, Timbertown started fracturing.

Timbertown was hardly teeming with the sort of gay population that scared the OCA, those that could be found in the larger, more open cities of the area, the hypermasculine muscleboys in leather, who dared to flaunt aggressive sexuality. Though a spokesman for the OCA could warn that the intent of homosexuals "... is to take over the state of Oregon and turn it into Queer Nation," no one in Timbertown could have seriously thought that of any fellow residents. The idea that homosexuals were going somehow to ruin government, or that homosexuality somehow weakens marriages (whose?), were never shown to have any factual foundations. But the OCA put a petition to put an anti-gay civil rights measure on an upcoming ballot, splitting the community into sides. This had bizarre and unexpected consequences.

An exhibit based on the life of Anne Frank became politicized, with the OCA calling it "pro-homosexual propaganda." The valuable role of victimhood was sought by both sides, with the OCA unconvincingly arguing that they themselves were the persecuted minority, the equivalent of Jews in the Holocaust. The mayor of the town had to withdraw from the traditional annual prayer breakfast as it, too, became political rather than ecumenical. Children at school began to beat each other up depending on what sides their parents took on the issue. The few members of minority races in the town saw an increase in hostility, and although the newspaper and schools took an anti-racist attitude, the white majority who were losing jobs did what people always do, and found someone else to blame. There was no racial strife before the sexual issue started splitting people. Even more sadly, although the ballot measure passed with 57% of the vote, it accomplished little except the fracturing of Timbertown. In less than a year, there was an injunction against putting the measure into effect, a statewide antigay ballot failed, and U.S. Supreme Court ruled in ways that would make the measure a dead issue, but of course Timbertown could not be put back together again. Stein's well-researched book coolly recounts the agonies of Timbertown, and reminds us that they are national concerns, here merely writ small.

I remember being really pleased when I found this book a few years back. This book is definitely written as ANOTHER response to the lesbian ...wars of the early 1980s. So it has articles about butch-femme and SM and questions about who is a (or should I say THE) real lesbian. Also, it has great articles about race and class, especially a black lesbian academic's reading of the Vanessa Williams porn spread. ... I would highly recommend this book for readers looking for cool lesbian anthologies.