After the Ball

A very good book on gays and what they can do to combat the bigotry they have to contend with. Some gays find this book offensive because it dares to suggest that marching for gay rights with your naked backside hanging out MIGHT cause some people to view gays as degenerates. I think the suggestion to march with dignity and purpose without resorting to shock tactics makes very good sense indeed. Reminds me of the old saying "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar." Anyway, I enjoyed "After the Ball" very much and thought it very well written and researched and informative. A lot can be learned from this book.

I would like to say thank you to everyone who purchased and got something out of "After the Ball." Marshall Kirk was my uncle. I say "was" because he passed away a year ago. I'm glad his legacy will live on in this book and all of the genealogy research he'd done over the years.

Although its tone is sometimes too harsh and its generalizations too sweeping, AFTER THE BALL remains a prescient landmark in the American gay rights movement. The book recast the debate about effective tactics among gay activists, and laid the foundation stone for organizations such as GLAAD. The book's logic for gays is compelling, if uncomfortable: either face the unvarnished realities of American bigotry, and attack them aggressively at their psychological roots, or else fail to win a secure place in society. Ever since it made waves inside and outside the gay community, this polemic has been condemned by both the gay left wing and the religious right wing -- so it must be doing something right for the rest of us.

Since time out of mind, gays have been the hapless victims of the hateful propaganda of a society almost uniformly arrayed against them. This 1989 book suggested ways in which the gay community could (a) organize itself and (b) throw those very propaganda techniques -- lies, if you will -- back in homohaters' faces. In 1999, the gay commmunity is doing just that. Naturally, the religious and political right are enraged. A work of fundamental -- tho' easily missed -- sociohistorical significance.

"After The Ball" is destined to become a modern classic of gay political literature. In this seminal work, Kirk and Madsen present arguments that are clear, cogent, and eminently practical. All this back in 1989 - years before the current "gay conservative movement." Legions of high-profile gay activists have now jumped on this bandwagon, appropriating Kirk's and Madsen's ideas without so much a passing credit to their source. This is a travesty. The likes of Andrew Sullivan, Bruce Bauwer, Gabriel Rotello, and Michelangelo Signorile should be ashamed. Apparently, because this book and its authors were viciously attacked in print by some of these same individuals when it was first published, they ARE ashamed to admit that they now AGREE WITH and promote the very same ideas. Required reading for any gay person with a scintilla of common sense.