Well taken. A thoughtful, reasonable, and eminently worthy companion to recent books such as David Moats’s Civil Wars (Feb....
Why does marriage matter? In part, according to Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, because it secures civil rights that unmarried people—more specifically, unmarried gays and lesbians—do not have.
That inequality, Wolfson argues, is fundamentally wrong and suspiciously un-American. Gays and lesbians, he urges, “speak the vocabulary of marriage, live the personal commitment of marriage, do the hard work of marriage, and share the responsibilities we associate with marriage.” He adds, “It’s time to allow them the same freedom every other American has—the freedom to marry.” As Wolfson well knows, there are powerful forces arrayed against any judge or legislature with a mind to grant such freedom, and discrimination abounds. He reckons that the country is about evenly divided in thirds on the issue of gay marriage: a third oppose it on any grounds, a third approve of it or at least disapprove denying it, and a third aren’t quite sure personally but are likely to reject that discrimination, meaning that, in theory, a majority of Americans are, in principle, in favor of allowing gay and lesbian marriage, providing for the portability thereof from state to state, and according married partners all rights attendant in marriage as it is civilly understood. All that will come soon, Wolfson predicts, and he imagines a happy time in the not-too-distant future when “gay people have won the freedom to marry and our society looks back and wonders what the big deal was.” Meanwhile, he examines some of the current fighting, along with a few of the villains and many heroes in the struggle, from gays and lesbians willing to bear the weight of fighting for civil rights to conflicted politicians such as the Massachusetts legislator who remarked, “The Constitution has always required us to reach beyond our moral and emotional grasp.”
Well taken. A thoughtful, reasonable, and eminently worthy companion to recent books such as David Moats’s Civil Wars (Feb. 2004).Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-6458-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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