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9781509570003

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""What a fabulously timely, well-researched and argued book. The gay world has to be ready for the coming fight. It is hard to doubt that much of what has been achieved in a lifetime (mine for example!) is threatened by a new tsunami of authoritarian rightists. McCrea lays out a highly convincing wake-up call for the whole LGBTQI community. Queer or ally, I urge you to read it."" Stephen Fry ""I hope this important book sparks a conversation rather than a cancellation. While many of the book’s ideas are controversial, it is high time the LGBT community holds an open discussion about its core values and political strategies"" Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens ""Ronan McCrea poses questions from the heart, urgent questions designed to help secure a safe and egalitarian future for all gay people; for though there has been welcome progress there is visible, audible push back. The stomach-churning awfulness of the opening story of his savage public humiliation at age thirteen will never leave you. Nor should it. The future has to be homophobia-free and this book will play a significant role in ensuring it is."" Mary McAleese, former President of Ireland ""A thoughtful and timely reckoning with the triumphs and vulnerabilities of the gay rights revolution. Lucid and provocative, Ronan McCrea shows how far we’ve come – and how easily it could all unravel."" Yascha Mounk, author of The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time ""Did the movement for gay equality overreach by embracing freedom without responsibility? Did it induce a backlash by mortgaging itself to an alphabet soup of radical causes? Ronan McCrea's manifesto for moderation is sure to be controversial – and, for just that reason, deserves attention and debate."" Jonathan Rauch, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, author of Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights and Good for America ""Ronan McCrea has written a brilliantly argued book that mixes pragmatism and principle seamlessly. He shows that standing up for unlimited personal freedom is perilous in practice and unwise in principle, and that such a stance does not even serve the well-being of those who argue for it. His focus is on gay rights, but the lessons he offers apply across many areas of our collective social, cultural and political lives. People engaged in the struggle for personal liberation should pay close attention."" Barry Schwartz is Professor Emeritus at Swarthmore College and the author of The Paradox of Choice ""This is a fascinating and thought-provoking book. Ronan McCrea never shies away from challenging readers to reconsider their assumptions, and from setting out some difficult realities for the gay rights movement, as well as charting the extraordinary progress it has made in a few short decades. In making the case that progress is not irreversible – and indeed, is today at risk – and that this is a product not just of external conservative forces, but internal tensions within the gay community, this book has important insights and implications not just for gay rights but for all civil rights movements as they mature and confront the need to consolidate their early wins."" Sonia Sodha, Guardian columnist ""This timely book asks challenging questions of the gay rights movement. Whether we agree or disagree, all members of the LGBTI+ community and our allies need to consider the author’s analysis."" Leo Varadkar, former Prime Minister of Ireland

Author Information

Ronan McCrea is Professor of Constitutional and European Law at Faculty of Laws, University College London.

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