Gays in the Military: Toward a Critical Civil Rights Account
Special Issue: Law and the Liberal State
ISBN: 978-1-78441-239-5, eISBN: 978-1-78441-238-8
Publication date: 27 September 2014
Abstract
How did gays in the military go from being characterized as dangerous perverts threatening to the state, to victims being persecuted by the state, to potential heroes fighting on behalf of the state? What implications does this shift have for understanding the means by which the liberal state uses law to include the previously excluded? Offering a critical account of the inclusion of gays in the military, I argue that while the lifting of the ban can be seen as an important step in a classic civil rights narrative in which the liberal state gradually accommodates the excluded, pop culture allows us also to see state and minority group interest convergence as well as divergence, revealing the costs of inclusion.
Keywords
Citation
Burgess, S. (2014), "Gays in the Military: Toward a Critical Civil Rights Account", Special Issue: Law and the Liberal State (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 65), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 83-106. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720140000065003
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited