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Virtually Normal by Andrew Sullivan
In a dizzyingly short period of time, homosexuality has gone from being the love that dare not speak its name to the one that shouts it. Refreshingly, in this wide-ranging discussion of the moral and political status of homosexuals, Sullivan, the gay former whizbang New Republic editor, prefers the middle register. On the one hand, he shuns the liberal tendency to give gays victim status but, on the other, advocates the legalization of gay marriage because he views it as the public recognition of a gay's basic human right to fully love another member of his/her group -- a right that, Sullivan notes, even bigots generally grant those they hate.
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First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Andrew Sullivan
74 books153 followersAndrew Michael Sullivan is a British blogger, author, and political commentator. He is a speaker at universities, colleges, and civic organizations in the United States, and a guest on national news and political commentary television shows in the United States and Europe. Born and raised in England, he has lived in the United States since 1984 and currently resides in Washington, D.C. and Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Sullivan is sometimes considered a pioneer in political weblog journalism, since he was one of the first prominent political journalists in the United States to start his own personal blog. Sullivan wrote his blog for a year at Time Magazine, shifting on 1 February 2007 to The Atlantic, where it received approximately 40 million page views in the first year. He is the former editor of The New Republic.
Sullivan is sometimes considered a pioneer in political weblog journalism, since he was one of the first prominent political journalists in the United States to start his own personal blog. Sullivan wrote his blog for a year at Time Magazine, shifting on 1 February 2007 to The Atlantic, where it received approximately 40 million page views in the first year. He is the former editor of The New Republic.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
March 15, 2012
Written in the mid-90s, this book contributed to shifts in the arguments surrounding gay issues. I gained a valuable appreciation of where the gay rights movement has been compared with where it is now. I also gained insight into the philosophical underpinnings of various attitudes towards homosexuals in civil society. I think this is a great read for just about anyone. It offers a sense of perspective and a very coherent argument for the equality of all people under the law.
May 17, 2010
If you've ever tried to figure out how your insignificant, individual homosexual life can possibly equate to the polarizing target of political platforms and terrorizing agendas, Andrew Sullivan's tier-by-tier examination of perspectives helps make sense of it all. A definitive text book of information.
August 23, 2007
As the title implies, Andrew Sullivan (a gay man himself) thinks there is something weird about homosexuals. In this book, he tries to put his finger on it.
June 2, 2014
Andrew Sullivan apresenta ao leitor quatro grupos de argumentos relacionados com a homossexualidade na sociedade americana, expondo uma crítica racional sobre cada um:
Os Proibicionistas (com referência a Tomás de Aquino e à Bíblia) argumentam que o comportamento homossexual é anti-natural, pelo que é prejudicial à sociedade e deve ser proibido.
Os Liberacionistas (inspirados em Michel Foucault) acreditam que "homossexual" é uma etiqueta artificial que deve ser desconstruída, existindo apenas actos homossexuais.
Os Conservadores acreditam que a homossexualidade é um assunto privado e que deve ser admitido desde que não salte para a esfera pública. A política militar americana “Don't ask, don't tell” é um exemplo recente da postura Conservadora.
Os Liberais, segundo Sullivan, seguem na linha do movimento dos direitos civis dos negros norte-americanos, defendendo protecção legal para a minoria homossexual com medidas como ação afirmativa.
Sullivan conclui com uma perspectiva pessoal sobre a política ideal em relação à homossexualidade, uma posição intermédia entre a dos Conservadores e dos Liberais, em que o Estado (a coisa "pública") é neutro em relação à questão de orientação sexual (tal como deve ser em relação a sexo, raça, etc.), não se imiscuindo nos assuntos privados dos cidadãos, ao passo que é deixada liberdade total aos indivíduos (o "privado") para se comportaram em relação à orientação sexual tal como entenderem, desde que respeitem a liberdade alheia.
Segundo este ponto de vista todas as leis discriminando os homossexuais devem ser repelidas, sendo concedidos aos homossexuais todos os direitos e deveres dos heterossexuais, incluindo o direito a servir abertamente o seu país como militares e o direito ao casamento. No entanto, o Estado não deve ir mais além, isto é, legislando de forma a promover mudanças culturais que protejam os homossexuais, pelo que, por exemplo, as leis que agravam penas no caso de crimes de conteúdo homofóbico ou as leis que impõem igualdade de oportunidades em contratos entre privados, devem também ser repelidas.
Sullivan defende, no entanto, que faz parte da liberdade individual que cidadãos critiquem e desincentivem outros cidadãos em relação a comportamentos discriminatórios, isto é, é aceitável que uma empresa não contrate um funcionário por ele ser gay e também é aceitável que um cidadão escreva um artigo criticando e condenando essa empresa pela discriminação contida no seu acto; não é aceitável, no entanto, que o Estado legisle para determinar que as empresas devem procurar um equilíbrio em relação a minorias na sua contratação nem sequer para proibir a discriminação como razão para não contratação.
Os Proibicionistas (com referência a Tomás de Aquino e à Bíblia) argumentam que o comportamento homossexual é anti-natural, pelo que é prejudicial à sociedade e deve ser proibido.
Os Liberacionistas (inspirados em Michel Foucault) acreditam que "homossexual" é uma etiqueta artificial que deve ser desconstruída, existindo apenas actos homossexuais.
Os Conservadores acreditam que a homossexualidade é um assunto privado e que deve ser admitido desde que não salte para a esfera pública. A política militar americana “Don't ask, don't tell” é um exemplo recente da postura Conservadora.
Os Liberais, segundo Sullivan, seguem na linha do movimento dos direitos civis dos negros norte-americanos, defendendo protecção legal para a minoria homossexual com medidas como ação afirmativa.
Sullivan conclui com uma perspectiva pessoal sobre a política ideal em relação à homossexualidade, uma posição intermédia entre a dos Conservadores e dos Liberais, em que o Estado (a coisa "pública") é neutro em relação à questão de orientação sexual (tal como deve ser em relação a sexo, raça, etc.), não se imiscuindo nos assuntos privados dos cidadãos, ao passo que é deixada liberdade total aos indivíduos (o "privado") para se comportaram em relação à orientação sexual tal como entenderem, desde que respeitem a liberdade alheia.
Segundo este ponto de vista todas as leis discriminando os homossexuais devem ser repelidas, sendo concedidos aos homossexuais todos os direitos e deveres dos heterossexuais, incluindo o direito a servir abertamente o seu país como militares e o direito ao casamento. No entanto, o Estado não deve ir mais além, isto é, legislando de forma a promover mudanças culturais que protejam os homossexuais, pelo que, por exemplo, as leis que agravam penas no caso de crimes de conteúdo homofóbico ou as leis que impõem igualdade de oportunidades em contratos entre privados, devem também ser repelidas.
Sullivan defende, no entanto, que faz parte da liberdade individual que cidadãos critiquem e desincentivem outros cidadãos em relação a comportamentos discriminatórios, isto é, é aceitável que uma empresa não contrate um funcionário por ele ser gay e também é aceitável que um cidadão escreva um artigo criticando e condenando essa empresa pela discriminação contida no seu acto; não é aceitável, no entanto, que o Estado legisle para determinar que as empresas devem procurar um equilíbrio em relação a minorias na sua contratação nem sequer para proibir a discriminação como razão para não contratação.
June 30, 2016
I was skeptical about Andrew Sullivan's political argument. His thoughts in the introduction were, at best, mediocre, but then Sullivan fleshed out a rich understanding of the socio-political underpinnings of the conservative/liberal divide in mid-1990s America. To be sure, his survey scratches the surface of political problems shared between homosexual communities and the heterosexual majority; nevertheless, Sullivan's work was likely very insightful for gay men and women at this time (it was published in 1995), and his insistence upon gay marriage and the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (DADT) is foundational to the current political moment. I was particularly struck by the following passage from the epilog:
'The sublimation of sexual longing can create a particular form of alienated person: a more ferocious perfectionist, a cranky individual, an extremely brittle emotionalist, an ideological fanatic. This may lead to some brilliant lives: witty, urbane, subtle, passionate. But it also leads to some devastating loneliness. The abandonment of intimacy and the rejection of one's emotional core are, I have come to believe, alloyed evils. All too often, they preserve the persona at the expense of the person' (p.189).
Indeed, in a post-AIDS, post-gay marriage, post-DADT moment, the sublimation of emotion comes at the expense of normativity. But then, what is a battle if not surrounded on many sides by many (differing) issues? It's clear that Sullivan is a gay conservative (he would laugh should anyone ever call him queer). As objective as we can view his text, he makes an interesting addition to the political field of the mid-1990s: particularly at a time when much of the focus was turned to HIV/AIDS, disease technologies, and ultimately finding a cure.
'The sublimation of sexual longing can create a particular form of alienated person: a more ferocious perfectionist, a cranky individual, an extremely brittle emotionalist, an ideological fanatic. This may lead to some brilliant lives: witty, urbane, subtle, passionate. But it also leads to some devastating loneliness. The abandonment of intimacy and the rejection of one's emotional core are, I have come to believe, alloyed evils. All too often, they preserve the persona at the expense of the person' (p.189).
Indeed, in a post-AIDS, post-gay marriage, post-DADT moment, the sublimation of emotion comes at the expense of normativity. But then, what is a battle if not surrounded on many sides by many (differing) issues? It's clear that Sullivan is a gay conservative (he would laugh should anyone ever call him queer). As objective as we can view his text, he makes an interesting addition to the political field of the mid-1990s: particularly at a time when much of the focus was turned to HIV/AIDS, disease technologies, and ultimately finding a cure.
September 8, 2009
I'd call this necessary reading on the topic of homosexuality by someone with a vested interest in being understood (Sullivan). Sullivan is Catholic, conservative, and gay -- and more than happy to embrace the peculiarity and seeming contradiction of those descriptions.
I came out with the same conclusions I had going in -- but it helps to have such clear arguments on the outset.
Brilliant book. You'd do well to unlearn everything you've heard and then buy this book.
I came out with the same conclusions I had going in -- but it helps to have such clear arguments on the outset.
Brilliant book. You'd do well to unlearn everything you've heard and then buy this book.
July 1, 2023
stunning to read the afterword and realise that this entire tract was written in 1996, i.e. during the Clinton administration. the problems it zones in on at points (focuses on language use in academia and campuses, for example) and the solutions it advocates for (quite simply, gay marriage and the ability to be openly out in the military) are, against that context, strikingly modern.
Sullivan is illuminating both about the political traditions he discusses, and about the homosexual condition (if such a condition really does obtain). he also engages arguments from starkly different perspectives (the family-oriented conservative, the religious prohibitionist — S.'s terms) with considerable and admirable equanimity and empathy.
for all that I wish Sullivan engaged the idea of how homosexuality is to be treated as a cultural issue in greater depth. of course that isn't the point of his text in the first place, but insofar as some sort of social equality for homosexuals and heterosexuals (and, dare one say it, bisexuals) is envisaged, then the cultural gap needs also to be addressed. Sullivan is probably too optimistic about the potential for discourse and healthy, constructive societal discussions to take place by themselves once liberal policy has taken care of discrimination on the part of the state — as, actually, the 27 years after this text's publication and the 8 after America's legalisation of gay marriage have shown. how are these conversations actually to happen, and in what ways should they grow?
politics is one piece of the puzzle, but culture is almost certainly a larger one — to the extent that it is separable from politics and that politics doesn't simply supervene on it. where that's true the mere political treatment of the sexuality issue must leave so much out.
not that, in the end, any one text can cover it all. Virtually Normal was a jolt that political discussion about homosexuality required in its time, and it's one that really does resonate still. even if the solutions it advocates for are imperfect, and even if its perspective looks narrower than it might needs be, it gets so much right about the traps various political camps fall into and about what it feels like to fall into queer love — and what the political implications of that might be — that it still feels like a useful stopping point today. and given its analytical power and argumentative richness, it is and likely for a long time will be a very worthwhile read.
Sullivan is illuminating both about the political traditions he discusses, and about the homosexual condition (if such a condition really does obtain). he also engages arguments from starkly different perspectives (the family-oriented conservative, the religious prohibitionist — S.'s terms) with considerable and admirable equanimity and empathy.
for all that I wish Sullivan engaged the idea of how homosexuality is to be treated as a cultural issue in greater depth. of course that isn't the point of his text in the first place, but insofar as some sort of social equality for homosexuals and heterosexuals (and, dare one say it, bisexuals) is envisaged, then the cultural gap needs also to be addressed. Sullivan is probably too optimistic about the potential for discourse and healthy, constructive societal discussions to take place by themselves once liberal policy has taken care of discrimination on the part of the state — as, actually, the 27 years after this text's publication and the 8 after America's legalisation of gay marriage have shown. how are these conversations actually to happen, and in what ways should they grow?
politics is one piece of the puzzle, but culture is almost certainly a larger one — to the extent that it is separable from politics and that politics doesn't simply supervene on it. where that's true the mere political treatment of the sexuality issue must leave so much out.
not that, in the end, any one text can cover it all. Virtually Normal was a jolt that political discussion about homosexuality required in its time, and it's one that really does resonate still. even if the solutions it advocates for are imperfect, and even if its perspective looks narrower than it might needs be, it gets so much right about the traps various political camps fall into and about what it feels like to fall into queer love — and what the political implications of that might be — that it still feels like a useful stopping point today. and given its analytical power and argumentative richness, it is and likely for a long time will be a very worthwhile read.
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September 16, 2022I don't really agree with most of the stuff the author says, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the attention to the reconstruction of each argument he disputes. It feels odd by now to read a piece of politically involved writing where the author has enough respect for their opponents to actually consider their viewpoint and make it sound logical and coherent.
July 23, 2012
I wouldn't say I "really liked this", but it was indeed quite well written and fairly reasoned. He lays out different camps --
1) Prohibitionist -- folks who believe, more or less, that by "natural law" homosexuality is against nature (cuz you can't make babies etc) and oppose it on those grounds. My gripe with this section: He's like Jesus and the OT people didn't know about natural law cuz it hadn't been invented yet. Isn't the point of natural law that it existed before it was philosophized? Yes, I think. Basically, I think he's a little obtuse when he's like "oh, something that occurs in only 5% of people isn't by nature abnormal?" But basically, a good lay out of what he considers a basically reasoned, if wrong, position.
2) Liberationist - which I think isn't really the polar opposite of the first. Liberationist is basically ACT UP - Silence=Death, let's try to make progress by being as flamboyant as we can. Oh but then we alienate people. And then we go back to academia. Or something like that. Basically, you can't effect change simply by being a weirdo. Probably true.
3) Conservative - Be friendly with gays socially but ban them from stuff in public. Which is silly. But lots of people have done it, and lots of people probably still do.
4) Liberal - making gays just another special interest group -- focusing on private rights/anti-discrimination (housing, employment, especially), calling anyone who doesn't give gay people everything they want a bigot. This is definitely problematic. I am glad he includes it.
So he says: give gay people the same public rights and responsibilites (military service, civil marriage) and let the private stuff sort itself out. Don't force anybody to love gay people, just don't force gay people to live a life of imposed secrecy. Does this work? I dunno. Is it well argued? Kinda.
I felt like it tried to tow a line between being a personal opinion piece and being a laying out of a political philosophy and in doing so, didn't completely work as either. Also, I thought he didn't really discuss the rights he was proposing within the context of the various arguments, which would have made a much stronger argument for me. Like: don't pull marriage out of your butt in the liberationist chapter! Introduce it to begin with guy! Dang!
So, good, interesting, well-written, but ultimately unsatisfying. (And not really an argument about how gay people should act normal at all! Deceptive title!) Ah well.
1) Prohibitionist -- folks who believe, more or less, that by "natural law" homosexuality is against nature (cuz you can't make babies etc) and oppose it on those grounds. My gripe with this section: He's like Jesus and the OT people didn't know about natural law cuz it hadn't been invented yet. Isn't the point of natural law that it existed before it was philosophized? Yes, I think. Basically, I think he's a little obtuse when he's like "oh, something that occurs in only 5% of people isn't by nature abnormal?" But basically, a good lay out of what he considers a basically reasoned, if wrong, position.
2) Liberationist - which I think isn't really the polar opposite of the first. Liberationist is basically ACT UP - Silence=Death, let's try to make progress by being as flamboyant as we can. Oh but then we alienate people. And then we go back to academia. Or something like that. Basically, you can't effect change simply by being a weirdo. Probably true.
3) Conservative - Be friendly with gays socially but ban them from stuff in public. Which is silly. But lots of people have done it, and lots of people probably still do.
4) Liberal - making gays just another special interest group -- focusing on private rights/anti-discrimination (housing, employment, especially), calling anyone who doesn't give gay people everything they want a bigot. This is definitely problematic. I am glad he includes it.
So he says: give gay people the same public rights and responsibilites (military service, civil marriage) and let the private stuff sort itself out. Don't force anybody to love gay people, just don't force gay people to live a life of imposed secrecy. Does this work? I dunno. Is it well argued? Kinda.
I felt like it tried to tow a line between being a personal opinion piece and being a laying out of a political philosophy and in doing so, didn't completely work as either. Also, I thought he didn't really discuss the rights he was proposing within the context of the various arguments, which would have made a much stronger argument for me. Like: don't pull marriage out of your butt in the liberationist chapter! Introduce it to begin with guy! Dang!
So, good, interesting, well-written, but ultimately unsatisfying. (And not really an argument about how gay people should act normal at all! Deceptive title!) Ah well.
March 12, 2013
This is really one of the best books about homosexual politics that I have read. I really appreciate how Sullivan takes a philosophical look at a variety of explanations for why things are the way they are in law, policy and politics about homosexuals (he is NOT talking about societal norms and values). And, while he does come across as judgmental at times, it is obvious that he has taken great pains to represent the positions as evenly as possible. The only quibble is that, in the concluding chapter, he doesn't really say HOW to make change happen -- just that it should. Maybe the policy geek in me slipping out.
July 21, 2015
A 90s case for marriage equality through the lens that gays and lesbians are just like heterosexual couples. It feels dated on that front. However, Sullivan takes a look at four different ways to view homosexuals, criticizing each view (whether said view is for or against marriage equality) and defending gay marriage through each viewpoints' logic and rhetoric. An interesting trial, but definitely and happily dated.
April 19, 2013
Virtually Normal provides an excellent and detailed presentation of the arguments surrounding homosexuals. The only issue would be a growing irrelevance surrounding some of the issues Andrew Sullivan focuses on, namely gays in the military and gay marriage. Regardless, the comprehensive analysis of the principles of different viewpoints makes this book worth reading.
December 22, 2012
The author's characterization and explanation of the four main arguments about homosexuality were interesting and rang true, but much of the book was written in political and psychological jargon that went over my head. Definitely a good read if you are interested in law about homosexuality.
March 3, 2014
It might be a ground breaking book in the 90s, but today it's just irrelevant. Neither interesting, nor informative. If not for reading a book starting with V, I think I would have stayed clear of this one.
August 10, 2020
Great book, well thought out and well written. Even the more personal parts are quite interesting. It's astonishing how many of the things Sullivan predicted in the '90s turned out to be true more than twenty years after.
An useful read even in 2020.
An useful read even in 2020.
July 14, 2013
We hung on his every word, even before the Internet went wide.
January 31, 2016
As observers of Mr. Sullivan would expect, this book is well-reasoned and argued with great passion. Certainly worth slipping off the shelf.
November 20, 2019
Very good for a newbie gay like me.
December 17, 2023
Andrew Sullivan crafts a rigorous and thorough analysis that succeeds at lulling the reader into implicitly accepting his reactionary and incurious framework. Sound familiar?
February 12, 2017
Wonderful essay. Written in the mid 90's, Sullivan considers four schools of thought on homosexuality that were popular in US culture at the time.
Each of these four philosophies were intentionally or unintentionally supressing the rights and the dignity of homosexuals, and Sullivan made it his task to dissect and debunk each them in turn.
What's incredible to me is, while reading the book, I found application of many of these philosophies at work around me.
The four are: Prohibitionism, Liberationism, Conservativism, and Liberalism.
Prohibitionism was the least interesting to me, it amounts to those who want to use government to legally punish and socially deter homosexuality, which they believe to be an unnatural abomination. Sullivan defeats the argument by disproving their foundational belief that homosexuality is unnatural or that their original thinkers (he focuses on Jesus and the early church) were against the behavior.
Liberationism dismisses the idea of homosexuality as a historical construct that traps people into thinking about themselves and others in a limited way. Most of this thought was developed by Foucault, who I didn't know much about, but seems to promote abandoning all labels and concepts used to bucket and define people. I'm skipping over a lot, but Sullivan ultimately dismisses Foucalt et. al. as promoting their own sort of authoritarian form of isolation that is regardless totally detached from how people really live. And just when I thought this was too esoteric an idea to be relevant, I watched "I Am Not Your Negro", a documentary about James Baldwin, which had a clip of Baldwin debating some (white) Yale professor on Dick Cavett. The Yale Professor says discrimination shouldn't be a problem because he is closer to black academics than he is to white rural Appalacians. Baldwin's stormy response is incredible, and can be seen here. Baldwin delivers the same response as Sullivan to the same liberationist challenge: you can't transcend discrimination through language or ideas. Discrimation is a physical barrier.
Conservatives are different than the term I'm used to. Instead, Sullivan defines conservatives as "someone who essentially shares the premises of the liveral state, its guarantee of liberty, of pluralism, of freedom of speecha nd action, but who still belives politics is an arena in which it is necesary to affirm certain cultural, social, and moral values over others." This sometimes manifests in folks who "combine a private tolerance of homosexuals with the public dispproval of homosexuality." This idea proved to simply be dangerous, because of it's lack of an early response to the AIDS crisis. I think this mindset has mostly disappeared from our culture, thanks to polarization over the issue.
The final (and most interesting) philosophy was liberalism. Sullivan sees liberalism today as having strayed a long way from its roots.
This has resulted what Sullivan deems "a crisis of legimitacy". This perceived crisis is in full force today, and has been totally weaponized in our politics. A great example is Cal Berkeley stopping Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking at their university during his book tour. Those on Milo's side, and (critically) those who are neutral or only leaning towards Milo's side, saw this as an act of hypocricy for a liberal institution like Berkeley to silence Milo's (racist/mysoginist/disgusting) message. Milo obviously saw this as a big win, both in the "culture wars" but also financially, as the press boosts book sales. What is the solutoin? Sullivan stresses that liberals should focus on culture and not writing laws that push their values on those who do not share them.
Is Sullivan right? I don't think so. There are countless counter-examples where liberals winning legal/legislative battles have protected minorities. Sullivan seems satisfied to say that those victories are less important than the quiet victories of liberals pushing culture towards greater tolerance. However, I think the perceieved hypocricy is critical for a liberal to understand if we want any sort of dialogue with the rest of the country. This doesn't really exist today.
Each of these four philosophies were intentionally or unintentionally supressing the rights and the dignity of homosexuals, and Sullivan made it his task to dissect and debunk each them in turn.
What's incredible to me is, while reading the book, I found application of many of these philosophies at work around me.
The four are: Prohibitionism, Liberationism, Conservativism, and Liberalism.
Prohibitionism was the least interesting to me, it amounts to those who want to use government to legally punish and socially deter homosexuality, which they believe to be an unnatural abomination. Sullivan defeats the argument by disproving their foundational belief that homosexuality is unnatural or that their original thinkers (he focuses on Jesus and the early church) were against the behavior.
Liberationism dismisses the idea of homosexuality as a historical construct that traps people into thinking about themselves and others in a limited way. Most of this thought was developed by Foucault, who I didn't know much about, but seems to promote abandoning all labels and concepts used to bucket and define people. I'm skipping over a lot, but Sullivan ultimately dismisses Foucalt et. al. as promoting their own sort of authoritarian form of isolation that is regardless totally detached from how people really live. And just when I thought this was too esoteric an idea to be relevant, I watched "I Am Not Your Negro", a documentary about James Baldwin, which had a clip of Baldwin debating some (white) Yale professor on Dick Cavett. The Yale Professor says discrimination shouldn't be a problem because he is closer to black academics than he is to white rural Appalacians. Baldwin's stormy response is incredible, and can be seen here. Baldwin delivers the same response as Sullivan to the same liberationist challenge: you can't transcend discrimination through language or ideas. Discrimation is a physical barrier.
Conservatives are different than the term I'm used to. Instead, Sullivan defines conservatives as "someone who essentially shares the premises of the liveral state, its guarantee of liberty, of pluralism, of freedom of speecha nd action, but who still belives politics is an arena in which it is necesary to affirm certain cultural, social, and moral values over others." This sometimes manifests in folks who "combine a private tolerance of homosexuals with the public dispproval of homosexuality." This idea proved to simply be dangerous, because of it's lack of an early response to the AIDS crisis. I think this mindset has mostly disappeared from our culture, thanks to polarization over the issue.
The final (and most interesting) philosophy was liberalism. Sullivan sees liberalism today as having strayed a long way from its roots.
In a curious twist, as the culture has become more thoroughly liberalized, as more people approve the abstract notions of toleration, freedom of movement,s of speech, of religion, of conscience, of choice, liberals have moved into an area where they sometimes seem opposed to these ideas. They have found themselves defending those who inhibit freedom of action (criminals), whose who inhibit freedom of speech (antiracist, antisexist censors), and those who inhibit freedom of choice (those who enforce the now elaborate rules governing how individauls can associate with and employe people).
This has resulted what Sullivan deems "a crisis of legimitacy". This perceived crisis is in full force today, and has been totally weaponized in our politics. A great example is Cal Berkeley stopping Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking at their university during his book tour. Those on Milo's side, and (critically) those who are neutral or only leaning towards Milo's side, saw this as an act of hypocricy for a liberal institution like Berkeley to silence Milo's (racist/mysoginist/disgusting) message. Milo obviously saw this as a big win, both in the "culture wars" but also financially, as the press boosts book sales. What is the solutoin? Sullivan stresses that liberals should focus on culture and not writing laws that push their values on those who do not share them.
Is Sullivan right? I don't think so. There are countless counter-examples where liberals winning legal/legislative battles have protected minorities. Sullivan seems satisfied to say that those victories are less important than the quiet victories of liberals pushing culture towards greater tolerance. However, I think the perceieved hypocricy is critical for a liberal to understand if we want any sort of dialogue with the rest of the country. This doesn't really exist today.
September 3, 2019
Sullivan splits Americans into four different categories regarding the politicization of homosexuality: Prohibitionists, Liberationists, Conservatives, and Liberals. I don't agree with his final recommendations regarding political policies and the LGBTQ+community, but this book is rather dated, having been released in 1995. He did make some salient points. But I disagree with him regarding legislation. Now I am anxious to compare this to The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life in more detail.
July 5, 2021
A well-written, informed book concerning four different public perspectives on homosexuality. Sullivan discusses prohibitionist, liberationist, conservative, and liberal views on homosexuality in a clear and concise way. A good book, but not the best.
December 27, 2021
It took me a while to read it just becouse it is for school and I needed al the details. It is very good book about discrimination and the problems homosexual people experience. I gained a valuable appreciation of where the LGBTQ+ rights movement has been compared with where it is now.
June 2, 2024
A fact dense history of LGBTQ2 plus rights beginning BCE. references to the role modern religion played.
Author points out that the AIDS crisis forced Americans to acknowledge homosexual society.
Eye opening.
Author points out that the AIDS crisis forced Americans to acknowledge homosexual society.
Eye opening.
May 9, 2020
A good look into opinions of homosexuality at the time of the writing. It shows its age a bit, but is still a valuable read.
August 6, 2022
The arguments are well thought out and articulated. For me personally it was a very difficult read and not as enjoyable as some others.
November 4, 2023
A thoughtful argument, although outdated, about homosexuality
November 28, 2024
Still interesting to read in 2024.
September 1, 2025
An ok book for the 20th century, but it’s incredibly out dated. Far better books exist on the subject, so I’d probably never recommend this one to anyone. Cool to have on my shelf, though.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews