{"id":40378,"date":"2014-06-16T10:09:23","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T17:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/?p=40378"},"modified":"2014-06-17T09:17:49","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T16:17:49","slug":"the-tolerance-trap-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/2014\/06\/16\/the-tolerance-trap-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tolerance Trap &#8211; Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><ul class=\"inline-playlist playlist\" title=\"\"><li><a href=\"http:\/\/archive.org\/download\/20140616Uprising\/2014_06_16_tolerance_trap1.mp3\">Listen to this segment with Suzanna Walters <\/a><\/li><\/ul><ul class=\"inline-playlist playlist\" title=\"\"><li><a href=\"http:\/\/archive.org\/download\/20140616Uprising\/2014_06_16_uprising.mp3\">Listen to the entire program with Sonali Kolhatkar<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" align=right width=50% src=\"\/home\/graphics\/tolerancetrap.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>Texas Governor Rick Perry, speaking in San Francisco last week likened being gay to being an alcoholic. He said, &#8220;Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle \u2026 you have the ability to decide not to do that.&#8221; He added, &#8220;I may have the genetic coding that I&#8217;m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way.&#8221; His controversial remarks come on the heels of the Texas Republican Party expressing its support for so-called &#8220;reparative therapy&#8221; for homosexuality \u2013 a discredited counseling treatment to &#8220;cure&#8221; people of their homosexuality. <\/p>\n<p>The progressive response to the idea that homosexuality is simply a choice is the assertion that people who are gay are simply born that way, perhaps they have a gene that makes them prefer people of their own sex, or in religious terms, &#8220;God made them that way.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Northeastern University Sociology Professor Suzanna Walters has a problem with this approach. She maintains that using the &#8220;born-this-way&#8221; approach to gay liberation reduces the LGBT movement to one that will be happy with &#8220;tolerance&#8221; or &#8220;acceptance&#8221; by mainstream American society. But is tolerance something worth fighting for? In asking to be tolerated, aren&#8217;t gay rights advocates simply asking society to tolerate the LGBT community like one tolerates anything that is uncomfortable or undesirable? <\/p>\n<p>In her ground breaking book, The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions Are Sabotaging Gay Equality, Suzanna Walters demands liberation over acceptance and warns against declaring victory for gay rights too soon. Analyzing pop culture&#8217;s depictions of gay characters, the marriage equality movement, scientific research into homosexuality, and religious approaches, she makes the case that nothing less than full equality and a societal transformation is worth fighting for. <\/p>\n<p><em>GUEST: Suzanna Walters, Professor of Sociology and Director of Women\u2019s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, author of All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America. Her latest book is The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions Are Sabotaging Gay Equality<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Texas Governor Rick Perry, speaking in San Francisco last week likened being gay to being an alcoholic. He said, &#8220;Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle \u2026 you have the ability to decide not to do that.&#8221; He added, &#8220;I may have the genetic coding that I&#8217;m inclined to be an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program","category-featured-book"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40388,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40378\/revisions\/40388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}