Social movement theory has developed a highly focused understanding of the adversaries a social movement faces. Historically, the field has largely attended to a movement's relationship with the state. Even with the emergence of more culturally oriented new social movements, analysis has tended to look at the interaction of a movement with legal processes or culture more generally. The importance of organized resistance to social movements, or counter-movements, has been acknowledged, but most of the sparse discussion of counter-movements has been more suggestive than concrete and systematic.

However, Tina Fetner's new book takes on the question of movement and counter-movement dynamics as its central concern. It looks at the ongoing dance between gay and lesbian (GL) activism in the United States since the rise of the gay liberation movement in the 1970s and the anti-gay activism of the Christian Right (CR) that developed in tandem to protest the claims of gay liberation, undo GL legal victories, and proactively limit the public protection and participation of gays and lesbians. The book is organized both chronologically and thematically, analyzing different ways in which a counter-movement may impact the movement it opposes while telling the history of the various stages and competing strategies of this particular confrontation. As an historical account the book does not break much new ground, but the juxtaposition gives these well-told stories a new resonance for the seasoned reader and provides an excellent overview for those new to these movements. Fetner's original research, including content analysis and interviews with leaders of GL and CR movement organizations, is used in service of the book's sociological analysis.

Fetner identifies seven ways in which the GL movement was affected by having a well-organized, well-funded, and popular counter-movement as an adversary. (Because of greater access to GL movement materials and interview subjects, her analysis focuses on this direction of the exchange.) Some are more convincing than others. For example, analyzing primary movement materials, she demonstrates a distinct shift in rhetorical tone on the part of the GL movement in the wake of Anita Bryant's first anti-gay protests. It is clear from this material that the counter-movement had an impact on political framing and, in fact, helped the GL movement by giving a clear face to previously generalized anti-gay public sentiments. She also convincingly argues that the tactical move on the part of the CR to take over the Republican Party sent the GL movement in search of allies among the Democrats at a time when allies were not easily found there — and when party politics was not necessarily a path the GL movement would have chosen absent a clear challenge. Less convincing is her account of the development of large national GL organizations in the 1980s as a response to the scale of organization building engaged in by the CR. The dynamics of GL organizational development was no doubt shaped by a myriad of factors, so it is difficult to weigh the specific effects of the countermovement based on the evidence Fetner provides.

There are other arguments that might have been more fully developed. Her discussion of same-sex marriage is one example. In it, Fetner argues that the GL movement focused on marriage because the CR claimed it as the symbolic ground on which the battle would be fought; GL leaders had little choice but to respond. Yet that analysis does not account for how marriage became a, if not the, major issue for the GL movement's rank and file. GL leaders were not only pulled to gay marriage by the opposition but pushed there by movement adherents who insisted on its primacy as a movement goal, even when leaders were resistant. This valuation of marriage by GL people was no doubt shaped by the pro-family terms of the counter-movement, and it may be an example of a counter-movement impacting a movement not through political battles with movement leaders but through cultural battles with everyday members. The complex dynamics of movement and counter-movement in the consolidation of same-sex marriage as a major issue of contention merits fuller attention than is given here.

Fetner's book is useful, clear, and concise. It takes the study of movement and counter-movement to the next stage by effectively pairing the histories of two opposing movements, showing their resonances, and analyzing points of influence. Perhaps because of its brevity, though, I was left questioning what focusing solely on movement/counter-movement dynamics contributes to our overall understanding of social movements. While some lines Fetner draws between the two were convincing, others suggested more complicated factors at play. And the central problem to which she rightfully points — that the GL movement has been more successful at changing public opinion on homosexuality in its favor despite being out-resourced, out-numbered and out-organized by the opposition — cannot be solved by focusing attention solely on this one dynamic. While pointing to it is useful as far as it goes, understanding social movements and social change might require an approach that is better able to account for a wider spectrum of interactions among a wider field of players.