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From the Left and Right;
An interview with Donna Minkowitz
- By Nicole Blizzard  N- In 1998, you put out a book called "Ferocious Romance: What My Encounters With The Right Taught Me About Sex, God, And Fury". The book recounts how you went undercover, mainly for the Village Voice and The Advocate I believe, to report on the Religious Right. What was the genesis for this exploration?
D- Well, I actually never did this for The Advocate but when I was at the Voice, there was this period around 1991 to 1993 when there was all these anti-gay ballot initiatives in states like Colorado and Oregon. If you remember, these were laws that said things like, all gay rights laws in every city in the state will be abolished. Basically, no government agency will be able to spend money to further any gay rights cause. That means, they can't even fund a gay group. They can't fund a gay youth group. They can't say that the health department can make a special program that administers to the needs of gay and lesbian people in the city and so on. So they were very frightening laws. The one in Oregon said that homosexuality was abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse, basically making the state go on record saying that gay people were monstrous. I was very frightened by these ballot initiatives and the Religious Right was behind them. So I started getting really interested in the Religious Right, kinda wondering why someone would spend so much energy attacking another group of people, gay people. What motivated them? So I started going undercover. I went undercover for Out Magazine to a Christian Coalition convention and that was very, very interesting for me. One reason was, the piece I wound up writing was about some things I discovered that I had in common with them. I realized that, hmm, how can I put this? When you're dressed up as a Christian Coalition woman and you're clapping for Phyllis Schafly when she comes into the room or you're standing there clapping for Pat Buchanan, you approach some things in your own psyche that might let you explore things emotionally that you have in common with the far right, things which are really there. The book is partly about the Religious Right and it's partly about me and the things I wound up having in common with them despite being a lesbian radical journalist who opposed all the things they stood for. I am undercover at some points in the book but I really wrote the book after I had done most of the initial undercover work.
 | | ABOUT NICOLE
Nicole Blizzard is a published poet whose poetry has appeared in such publications as "Illya's Honey" and "The Open Window II" (Hidden Brook Press) as well as in TechnoDyke's writer's forum, "The WriteDyke". She is also a freelance writer exclusively for TechnoDyke.com on a variety of subjects. She can be contacted at nicole_b92@hotmail.com |
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