Edmund White
Edmund White
Edmund Valentine White IIIis an American novelist, memoirist, and an essayist on literary and social topics. Much of his writing is on the theme of same-sex love. Probably his best-known books are The Joy of Gay Sexand his trio of autobiographic novels, A Boy's Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Emptyand The Farewell Symphony...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth13 January 1940
CountryUnited States of America
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First, I was opposed to gay marriage because it seemed like one more way that gays were wanting to assimilate. When I realized the Christian right was so opposed to it, as well as tyrannical governments in Africa and Russia, I thought, 'It must be a good thing to fight for.'
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Originally I was opposed to gay assimilation and targeted gay marriage as just another effort on the part of gays to resemble their straight neighbours.
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I've always deplored bad heterosexual values that dictate the minute a marriage is over the former partners no longer speak to each other; only straights could be so cruel and inhuman as to reject totally the person with whom they've shared their life for 20 or 30 years.
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I don't have to get married myself in order to campaign on behalf of gay marriage.
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Why did mainstream America come to accept marriage equality? Gay leaders had made a convincing case that gay families were like straight families and should have the same rights. The American spirit of fair play had been invoked.
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Just like Barack Obama, my views on gay marriage have evolved, and now I am a reluctant groom.
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If bigots oppose gay marriage so vehemently, it must be because marriage is a defining institution for them; gays will never be fully accepted until they can marry and adopt, like anyone else.
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Originally, I was against gay marriage because I was opposed to all marriage, being an old-fashioned gay bohemian. The straight people I knew in the sixties were very much opposed to it. I was, too, and it was never a possibility for gays, but when I saw how opposed the Religious Right was to it, I thought it a fight worth fighting.
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Barack Obama's decision to come out in favour of gay marriage may be a historic occasion, but it is not an isolated one. His administration has been making pro-gay noises for some time; his demographic in the upcoming election is young and educated, precisely the group that favours equality for the LGBT community.
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The culmination of a long struggle was 2013, which could clearly be labeled the Year of the Gay. State after state had legalized gay marriage, despite intense opposition from the religious right.
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Early on, after gay liberation, there was an almost Stalinist pressure from gay critics and even gay readers to write about positive role models. We were never supposed to write negative things about gays, or else we were seen as collaborating with the enemy.
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Europeans forget that one-third of the American people have had a personal conversation with Jesus Christ and that the born-again are not just little old ladies in black but also CEOs and provosts of universities and candidates for office.
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There was a certain hum that would be generated by the book when I was writing well; I'd stop working the instant that hum snapped off.
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Reading the several thousand pages of Christopher Isherwood's complete journals is an instructive corrective to the prissiness of reading fiction. Isherwood had faults that we'd say were unforgiveable in a novel (he was careful to distance himself from these in his autobiographical fiction).