If You Enjoyed Permanent Partners, You’ll Love Setting Them Straight
by Marvin Liebman

I would like to bring to your attention an important book recently published by an old friend of mine, Dr. Betty Berzon, titled Setting Them Straight. It deals with homophobia in our society and provides the means and the words to fight it. The book is a truly transcendent guide to dealing with the bigotry, stereotyping, and hatred that affects each and every lesbian and gay man in the country.

We've all found ourselves in a paralyzed state when we hear somebody else's anti-gay comment or joke. We often don't know how to respond and how to correct the other party's misinformation. And, even if we did know how to respond, on many occasions we are so overcome by fear of self-exposure that we don't say anything at all. This inability to respond to homophobia not only leaves the bigot in unenlightened ignorance, it causes damage to one's own self-worth. As Berzon points out, "the more enduring source of self-esteem for anyone gay or lesbian is the freedom to be authentically who and what we are, anytime, anywhere, and with anyone."

Berzon's is a far-reaching book. She writes in the same easy-to-understand, hands-on style as her earlier best-selling classic, Permanent Partners. She examines why people hate: "because they are unable to love" and because "hating helps to make the world seem more manageable." Scapegoating makes the gay individual "the villain who is threatening the welfare of nice people going about their decent heterosexual lives." She explains how individuals develop (or fail to develop) a sense of morality; a sense of decency towards other people.

Berzon explains that prejudice can often be understood as a product of the "frustration-aggression cycle." People become frustrated by problems that seem unmanageable so they agress against a target group rather than addressing their own issues. The religious right has defined gays as a "predatory outside force" that can be blamed for many of the failures of American life.

But all of that is useful background information for what is really the central thesis of Berzon's new book: the guidelines of dealing with anti-gay situations. It's as if she has personally observed each and every one of our confrontations with bigotry with notebook and pen in hand, and has compiled them in one volume. For each sample situation--comments by an anti-gay co-worker, for instance, or even another gay person's homophobia--Berzon provides a positive scenario for dealing with the situation. Berzon provides the reader with specific, informative, and invaluable tools to resend to anti-gay bigotry.

None of the actions Berzon looks at in order to combat homophobia would be successful, however, unless the gay subject is out of the closet. The common theme throughout the book, the most important thing we can do to defeat bigotry in our lives and in society is to come out. As Berzon points out, there's nothing wrong with "keeping a lid" on matters which might create conflict with others, but by remaining in the closet to make it easier for the homophobe, "you are essentially keeping the lid on you."

I believe that Setting Them Straight ranks with Permanent Partners as an invaluable "how-to" for every gay man and lesbian in America. As Berzon says in her final paragraph, "You are not alone. There are people you've never met, in places you've never seen, thinking and feeling exactly what you are, taking the same uneasy first steps, discovering the excitement of being in on the world changing. They are your gay and lesbian companions in this struggle. They are your family."

Back to FHO Nov 96 Home Page