MAKING HISTORY: The Struggle for Gay and...

MAKING HISTORY: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights 1945-1990 by Eric Marcus (HarperPerennial: $14; 534 pp., illustrated). Marcus has compiled oral histories that trace four decades of civil rights battles, from the postwar “homophile� movement to contemporary activism. Men and women describe their search for identity despite persecution by military and civilian authorities, religious zealots and gay-bashers. Their accounts stress that the gay rights movement centers not on questions of morality or normalcy, but on the demands of law-abiding, tax-paying citizens for the rights guaranteed to everyone by the Constitution, regardless of the disapproval of others.