Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality
by Andrew Sullivan
Book review
To the volcano of controversy homosexuality has become in American politics,
the editor of the New Republic brings light rather than more heat. Acknowledging
his own partisanship as a homosexual, he nevertheless coolly dissects the four
political armies he sees arrayed on the homosexuality battlefield of the culture
war. Sullivan finds the first two--prohibitionists, who object to homosexuality
on the basis primarily of biblical authority, and liberationists (such as ACT-UP
and Queer Nation), radical egalitarians who conceive of homosexuality as a
social construct rather than a personal quality--ironically alike because
neither engages in the give-and-take of politics, instead issuing demands based
in attitudes of, respectively, indisputable rectitude and permanent rebellion.
The other two, conservatives and liberals, are politically engaged, but on the
issues of homosexuality, they are deeply conflicted internally. Conservatives
have long practiced public disapproval and private toleration of homosexuals,
but events have conspired to make this practice seem obtuse. Liberals,
meanwhile, by attempting to treat individual prejudice against homosexuality as
an object of civil rights legislation, have upended their own historic
dedication to evenhanded governmental treatment of all citizens. Sullivan
finally posits a new politics of homosexuality that blends liberal equality in
the eyes of the state with conservative social stability in a program whose twin
tenets are open, unimpeded gay military service and legal gay marriage.
Skillfully argued and carefully written, this is the best book ever on gay
politics. Ray Olson
reprinted from booklist
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