To read this content please select one of the options below:

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