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In this collection of short articles, Dr. Robert N.
Minor, author of Scared Straight: Why It’s
So Hard to Accept Gay People and Why It’s So Hard
to be Human, a 2002 finalist for both the Lambda
Literary Award and the Independent Publisher Book Award,
applies his critically acclaimed insight to the issues
of life today.
Written since 1998 as monthly columns, Gay
and Healthy in a Sick Society challenges gay
people and their allies to see how not being or acting
“straight” is actually a healthy approach
to life. Gay people are just fine, Dr. Minor affirms.
It’s society that’s very sick. Most societal
perspectives, attitudes, and solutions prevent all people
from living fully, stifle their abilities to relate
to themselves and others as human beings, and keep society
stuck using the same old failing political, social,
and religious answers to life’s challenges.
Dr. Minor doesn’t waste energy complaining about
those opposed to gay people, but speaks to how lesbians,
gay men, bisexual and transgender people, and their
allies see themselves, respond to their critics, and
define their own life. Admiring the values of the sickness
around them may help people fit in but not contribute
to personal or societal healing. Instead, Gay
and Healthy proclaims, LGBT people must not
bury, but value, their own language, definitions, answers,
and insights into the variety of problems around them
— problems which hurt everyone but which society
would prefer to act out against LGBT people.
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