A Must-Read For The Same-Sex Culture War

This is no more than a book notice, as I have only read the introduction, conclusion, and dipped — some shallow and some deep — into other chapters.

The book is by Darel E. Paul and it is called From Tolerance to Equality and the subtitle tells the story of the book: How Elites Brought America to Same-Sex Marriage.

Anyone who is writing or studying or deeply interested in the politics of this subject will need to read this book carefully. Every academic and theological library has to purchase this book.

Here are some big ideas. Elites: about 20-25% of American households are elites and they are the managerial and professional classes of the American economy.

Long ago a friend of mine, a well-known evangelical author and professor, a Berkeley guy for much of his life, waxed eloquent on the history of same sex discussions from his experiences near the University of California. I recall his saying that at first it was about tolerance and acceptance but over time stridency in the conversation grew and it soon became about not just tolerance of difference, and tolerance requires for there to be disagreement and capacity to accept alternatives, but a demanded acceptance, equality, and a lack of tolerance for disagreement. I remember his saying, “I was there and I watched this story unfold.” He wasn’t much opining as he was simply describing.

Well, Paul’s book maps this story in detail, with numbers and stories and facts and angles and perspectives. He’s a professor at Williams College, hardly a bastion of the American Right! Some will think this book a conservative story, but I didn’t sense that at all. What I sensed was a guy on the prowl for explaining what happened. The story from tolerance to equality is the story, no mistaking that. This book tells that story.

I also sensed an odd irony, but I would have to read the book through to know if it is an irony: those most opposed, say, by the Bernie Sanders crowd and their strong affirmation of the movement mapped in this book, namely the corporate business world, that is, big money, are the very ones Darel Paul sees as creating the movement from tolerance to equality for same sex persons.

For me the irony was that the book sat on my desk a couple weeks and I was reading the subtitle as “elites bought” not “brought.” There’s something in the book to that.

The author does also expand his story a bit into transgenderism, but it’s largely the story of the connection of elites and same sex attitudes/beliefs moving from tolerance to equality and law.