The Politics of Homosexuality - February 18, 2010

On the topic of homosexuality, Andrew Sullivan has stated “There are as many politics of homosexuality as there are words for it, and not all of them contain reason. And it is harder perhaps in this passionate area than in any other to separate a wish from an argument, a desire from a denial. This fracturing of discourse is more than a cultural problem; it is a political problem. Without at least some common ground, no effective compromise to the homosexual question will be possible. Matters may be resolved, as they have been in the case of abortion, by a stand-off in the forces of cultural war. But unless we begin to discuss this subject with a degree of restraint and reason, visceral unpleasantness will dog the question of homosexuality for a long time to come, intensifying the anxieties that politics is supposed to relieve.” Andrew Sullivan is a blogger (The Atlantic Online’s Daily Dish), a senior editor at The New Republic, and author of The Conservative Soul (HarperCollins, 2006). His 1993 TNR essay, “The Politics of Homosexuality,” was credited by the Nation magazine as the most influential article of the decade regarding gay rights. Sullivan is a graduate of Oxford University and has a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University. Cosponsored by the Princeton University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Center.