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[audio https://www.peterbcollins.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Walters.mp3]Suzanna Danuta Walters is Director of Northeastern U.’s Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Professor of Sociology, and joins us to talk about her new book The Tolerance Trap. Warning: the book and this interview may disturb conventional thinking, and mess with your mind!Click here for free audiobook download from Audible, and earn $15 for the PBC Podcast!
Indeed, your humble host informs Walters that her book, subtitled How God, Genes and Good Intentions Are Sabotaging Gay Equality, did mess with his mind. She presents a series of thoughtful arguments:
–challenging conventional and consensus thinking about the relative importance of marriage equality;
–that tolerance of LGBTQ people is better than intolerance–but still not an achievement;
–the widely used meme that gays are “born this way” is based on thin science
–and that there is a pervasive heterosexual bias that colors most of these issues.
Walters is a great writer with excellent command of language, and a critical thinker who deftly parses the science, psychology, sexuality and politics of American gays in a sometimes brutal way. The book is not a stuffy academic piece, it’s a compelling set of arguments presented with some humor and references to pop culture.
Prof. Walters will be on a book tour this summer with stops in LA and San Francisco in June. Her website has details on the tour and more on the book.