UpDate - Vol. 15, No. 26, Page 5
April 4, 1996
Talk on gay & straight agenda

     Richard D. Mohr, professor of philosophy at the University of
Illinois, Urbana, will present a free public talk on "A Gay and
Straight Agenda" at 7 p.m., Thursday, April 11, in Room 130 Smith
Hall.
     Mohr describes his public lecture, which is part of the Lavender
Scholars Lecture Series, as a talk that "situates gay politics within
the cultural wars. I argue that the end of the taboo blanketing
discussion of gay issues will have a dramatic and positive effect on
relations between gays and straights and on the development of gay
politics. I rebut the charges that gay rights are 'special rights' and
that gays are not a 'legitimate' minority.
     "I sketch a positive agenda for gay politics, suggesting that we
need to begin thinking more about gayness as a relational property
that is important to, rather than irrelevant to, how people lead their
lives," he said.
     Mohr, who began his career as a classicist, is author of The
Platonic Cosmology. In the last decade, his work has focused on social
issues affecting gay Americans. He is the author of Gay/Justice: A
Study of Ethics, Society and Law and the controversialGay Ideas:
Outing and Other Controversies, which won the 1992 Lambda Literary
Awards Editors' Choice Award.
     His newest book is A More Perfect Union: Why Straight America
Must Stand Up for Gay Rights, a book that has been described as "a
handshake of greeting extended from gay experience to the hearts and
minds of mainstream America."
     Mohr also is the founding editor of the book series Between Men,
Between Women: Lesbian and Gay Studies, the first institutionalized
form of gay studies in the country. His monthly guest editorials are
regular features in gay newspapers across the country.
     Mohr received his bachelor's degree from the University of
Chicago and his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of
Toronto. He has been a fellow of the Canada Council, the Center for
Advanced Study at the University of Illinois and the Rockefeller
Foundation.
     The Lavender Scholars is a group of lesbian and gay male faculty,
staff and graduate students at UD that provides it members with
opportunities for intellectual as well as social integration by
sharing information about academic disciplines, current scholarship,
research and creative art.
     For information, call 831-8703.