“With marriage in the spotlight . . . who falls through the cracks?”
Ariel Gore participates in a marriage equality demonstration as she struggles for footing in her divorce. Trish Bendix receives a painful reminder that legal recognition of gay marriage is only one step toward societal recognition of her own marriage. Emanuel Xavier pays tribute to heroes of the LGBTQ community who didn’t live to enjoy the benefits of their activism.
Twenty-five deeply personal essays remind us marriage is not the same as family. It’s not the same as sex, orientation, or love. It’s not the same as inclusivity. And the law is not the same as acceptance. Amid queer voices that explore LGBTQ stories and perspectives often left out of the marriage equality debate, one note resonates, best described by Carter Sickels: “There is still so much work to be done.”
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Praise for Untangling the Knot
“The essays in this collection show why we all deserve the right to marry and why some of us will not wish to do so. The mélange of viewpoints demonstrates the complexity of the defining struggle of gay rights in our time, showing that it is not the monolith that political expedience often makes it seem. These writers speak with passion about love, law, loss, generational differences, and identity. This is an urgent and timely book.” — Andrew Solomon
Reviews
As each of the authors argues, mainstreaming LGBTQ relationships is not necessarily the way to bring true equality to those whose lives don’t fit the traditional mold. Equality isn’t just about marriage, they say — it’s also about the freedom to live your life in peace in a complicated world. — East Oregonian
Edited by Carter Sickels (The Evening Hour), these extremely sharp essays offer a startling array of perspectives on the fight for same-sex marriage in the United States, rendering a deceptively simple concept–that the needs of the LGBTQ community range far beyond marriage–fully and feelingly. Published as the Supreme Court agrees to hear arguments about same-sex marriage on a nationwide level, Untangling the Knot is profoundly eye
opening, even for readers well informed on the subject. — Shelf Awareness
