Sin, sickness, crime: Queer desire and the American state

Analysts of American life have long argued that local social life is central to normative participation in the affairs of the nation. Three of these areas of social life— religious association, family life, and local politics—are critical sites at which Americans are deemed “good citizens” and at which civic virtue is evidenced. These are also the three sites at which the homosexual's sin before God, sickness in the family, and crime are formulated and allocated. The emergence of gay and lesbian communities in America's cities and in national organizations represents negotiations with American culture about what it means to be gay or lesbian at the sites where the meanings of being a congregant, a family member, a citizen, etc., are made and unmade, and demonstrates the way remade social identities make possible the active exercise of civil rights.

Keywords:

• gay
• lesbian
• homosexual
• United States
• nation