"At the funeral of Matthew Shepard-the young Wyoming man brutally murdered for being gay-the Reverend Fred Phelps led his parishioners in protest, displaying signs with slogans like "Matt Shepard rots in Hell," "Fags Die God Laughs," and "God Hates Fags." In counter-protest, activists launched an "angel action," dressing in angel costumes, with seven-foot high wings, and creating a visible barrier so one would not have to see the hateful signs." "Though religion has long been thought of as one of the most virulently anti-gay genres of contemporary American politics and culture, in God Hates Fags, Michael Cobb maintains that religious discourses have curiously figured as some of the most potent and pervasive forms of queer expression and activism throughout the twentieth century. Cobb focuses on how queers have assumed religious rhetoric strategically to respond to the violence done against them. He alternates close readings of writings by James Baldwin, Tennessee Williams, Jean Toomer, Dorothy Allison, Alice Walker, and Stephen Crane with discussions of critical race theory, queer theory, political theory, and critical legal theory to illuminate the rhetorical opportunities embedded in religious hate speech. He pays special attention to significant Supreme Court cases, anti-gay legislation, and the political strategies, public declarations, websites, interviews, and other media made by key religious right believers and organizations that have mounted the most successful regulations and condemnations of homosexuality. God Hates Fags teaches us, quite strangely, that hate, more than love and tolerance, is what queers, now more than ever, might need the most. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET