Rating: 
Summary: This book is Virtually Neccessary
Review: A wonderfully detailed examination of the social and cultural issues relating the development of gay rights. I think anyone who wants to get a better sense of the communities involved on both sides of the fight for gay rights should read this. A must for any basal reading list of Gay Studies 101.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: Although I approached this book with an open mind, I was extremely disappointed with it. Sullivan seems to be saying that only a monogamous homosexual, or one who has achieve virtuous ex-gay status can achieve the correct morality as assigned by the his own Roman Catholocism. Yet his own experience with HIV, unsafe sex, and promiscuity seems to contradict this. At a time when so many Roman Catholic Priests are being prosecuted as pedophiles and many teens are stepping forward with tales of abuse, is it logical for Sullivan to be touting his own 'ethics'? What I found most disturbing was his insistence that morality is only a theory or abstract idea and one's own conduct (ie his own websites) must be ignored and excused as 'private' sins which may result in one's death, but are nevertheless innocent 'mistakes'. (...)
Rating: 
Summary: Rigorous thought, beautiful writing by the pre-gadfly Andrew
Review: Andrew Sullivan believes that acceptance into the American mainstream is critical if gays and lesbians are to overcome the lingering legal and personal discrimination they face. The bulk of Sullivan's relatively brief book is an analysis of current gay politics from four ideological perspectives: "prohibitionists," the Protestant fundamentalists and conservative Catholics whose teachings and Biblical literalism Sullivan subjects to withering logical and scholarly critique; "liberationists," radicals whose dense theory and belligerent tactics have made them, Sullivan believes, increasingly marginal; "conservatives," who do not want to oppress gays but who find gay politics and sexuality troublesome; and "liberals," who want to protect gays through traditional civil rights laws that bar discrimination by businesses, landlords, and schools. Staking out his own position as a classical liberal, Sullivan then argues that traditional anti-discrimination laws, which seek to remedy one infringement of liberty by imposing another, engender resentment and aggravate social division. His own prescription is to attack the governmental discrimination that persists in refusing gays the rights and responsibilities of marriage and military service. Such public equality, he believes, would do more than laws and court decisions to secure the ultimate goal of private equality.I've previously used this book as one text in an undergraduate political science course for the masterful, economical, and honest way it delineates and critiques four major ways of thinking about gay and lesbian freedom. This book displays the high-octane intelligence, elegant logic and wordcraft, and simple, noble, guileless passion for which Sullivan was better known before he became a website-hawking, on-the-fly-opining media gadfly. You should ignore the rabid Sullivan bashers who complain that he doesn't "get it" as a self-respecting gay man, and who wail about his sexual hypocrisy, his cozying up to Republicans, and the general fact that he gets lots more attention than they do. In their ad hominem distaste, they usually decline to grapple (or are incapable of doing so) with Sullivan's serious thinking, or to acknowledge that, in this book at least, he provides rigorous arguments, not just controversial pronouncements. Take this book on its own terms and forget about Sullivan's more recent baggage. For those in search of lively writing and whose minds are open to sharp, unconventional thinking (whether you expect to come away agreeing or not), it's one of the essential works on the gay/lesbian politics bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: The BEST book on the subject I have read
Review: Andrew Sullivan has become one of my favorite writers on the subject of homosexuality. In "Virtually Normal" he covers so many bases on why people have the attitude they do regarding homosexuality. Some chapters I had to re-read many times just because the depth he used in explaining things, some were so striking that i thought to myself, "That's what i have been thinking all along but never knew how to say it!" I would recommedn this book to anyone, whether homosexual or heterosexual, who is trying to understand a gay friend or a family member or simply try to move beyond, "I am gay, what do i do next?" Great job Andrew....your writings have a brought a great deal of hope to me and I am sure many others!
Rating:
Summary: The BEST book on the subject I have read
Review: Andrew Sullivan has become one of my favorite writers on the subject of homosexuality. In "Virtually Normal" he covers so many bases on why people have the attitude they do regarding homosexuality. Some chapters I had to re-read many times just because the depth he used in explaining things, some were so striking that i thought to myself, "That's what i have been thinking all along but never knew how to say it!" I would recommedn this book to anyone, whether homosexual or heterosexual, who is trying to understand a gay friend or a family member or simply try to move beyond, "I am gay, what do i do next?" Great job Andrew....your writings have a brought a great deal of hope to me and I am sure many others!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing writing from a true american intellect.
Review: Andrew Sullivan has written a gem with "Virtually Normal." In these beautifully written pages, we find an author exploring- his goal being to understand first, question next- four explanations for and proposed methods of dealing with homosexuality. In the end, he finds all four lacking. The doctrines given treatment are: prohibitionism- being gay is a choice of deviance and as such should be treated as a sin, constructionism- gay is merely a social construction and there would be no 'homosexual problem' if we deconstruct sexuality, Conservatism- we should let people be gay but homosexuality should NEVER be encouraged socially. Finally we get to Liberalism. Perhaps Sullivan finds the most trouble here. The liberal doctrine states that as a persecuted group, gays should be tolerated to the point that if social coercion becomes necessary (through 'hate crime' legislation and the like), all the better. Through 'education' (resembling indoctrination) equality can be forced. Save for prohibitionism, I would agree that liberalism is the most dangerous of all. Although it will be obvious that Sullivan has a special distaste for liberalism, he finds serious flaws in each of the four doctrines for good reason. His conclusion breaks sharply with all of them,resembling more of a classical liberal (J.S. Mill) approach. Tolerance should be encouraged, never forced. Government discrimination is the evil, private discrimination will die in the free market because it is always inefficient. Sullivan then devotes time to gay marriange and military service, asserting- very correctly- that untill homosexuals can serve their country openly and marry legally, they will always be on unequal footing. If the potential reader has never heard Sullivan speak on these issues, she should not delay. His afterword is a much needed response to seemingly universal misunderstanding on his book. As he criticizes the four dominant views, he gets criticized by them in turn. Even the 'conservatives,' who as ironic as it is, were the group that his defenders were overwhelmingly from, misunderstood his arguments against liberalism as an affirmation of conservativism. Sullivan, if I had to guess, is a republican with a small 'r', i.e. he believes in a somewhat self governing republic. Whatever your views, this book will challenge, educate, and motivate you.
Rating: 
Summary: Truly Subnormal
Review: As much as I may try to sympathize with a fellow gay conservative, this book is poor. It is certainly worse than usual for Sullivan (a smart and fairly good writer): it is flat and ideological. Sullivan's tendency to vilify results in gross and uninteresting caricatures of his opponents: he sets up straw men in what he calls "prohibitionists" and "conservatives," instead of presenting their arguments in the best light, as they themselves would. This might be a good Oxford debate trick, but it will not appeal to his best and most thoughtful readers. Sullivan does not come to grips with the core of the case against gay marriage, and I think that is because he is strikingly deaf to what is at stake in marriage. For instance, Sullivan argues that "the openness of the contract" and the "greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman" result in a honesty, flexibility, and equality that would "undoubtedly help strengthen and inform many heterosexual bonds" (pp. 202-3). To view this as a gain for the marital bond, let alone *only* as a gain, is to be blind to how much would be lost, blind to what is demanded by romantic love itself, and blind to the greater richness and happiness of a fully flourishing family life over the "network of gay friendship" with all its "flexibility" and "sexual candor" (p. 192). It is to see "a gamut of possibilities from anonymous sex to bourgeois coupling"-and only that; it is a cutting off of the true range, of assuming that the range experienced in homosexual life is the range in life simply, and therefore not seeing the unfortunate but overwhelming limitations of gay life (p. 194). In my experience (and I wish it were not so!), gays tend to share some unpleasant character traits, such as effeminacy or lack of masculinity, cliquishness, and lewdness. Sullivan acknowledges many of these things, but attempts to give them a positive spin. For example, concerning the frivolity of gay life, he praises it for its "irony or exhibitionism or irresponsibility" and its insight "that some things lead nowhere and mean nothing" (pp. 204-5). There is something to this, but it is a limited perspective. From the point of view of someone trying to assess the romantic possibilities (--from my point of view), I disagree that something very good can be built on such things.
Rating:
Summary: Truly Subnormal
Review: As much as I may try to sympathize with a fellow gay conservative, this book is poor. It is certainly worse than usual for Sullivan (a smart and fairly good writer): it is flat and ideological. Sullivan's tendency to vilify results in gross and uninteresting caricatures of his opponents: he sets up straw men in what he calls "prohibitionists" and "conservatives," instead of presenting their arguments in the best light, as they themselves would. This might be a good Oxford debate trick, but it will not appeal to his best and most thoughtful readers. Sullivan does not come to grips with the core of the case against gay marriage, and I think that is because he is strikingly deaf to what is at stake in marriage. For instance, Sullivan argues that "the openness of the contract" and the "greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman" result in a honesty, flexibility, and equality that would "undoubtedly help strengthen and inform many heterosexual bonds" (pp. 202-3). To view this as a gain for the marital bond, let alone *only* as a gain, is to be blind to how much would be lost, blind to what is demanded by romantic love itself, and blind to the greater richness and happiness of a fully flourishing family life over the "network of gay friendship" with all its "flexibility" and "sexual candor" (p. 192). It is to see "a gamut of possibilities from anonymous sex to bourgeois coupling"-and only that; it is a cutting off of the true range, of assuming that the range experienced in homosexual life is the range in life simply, and therefore not seeing the unfortunate but overwhelming limitations of gay life (p. 194). In my experience (and I wish it were not so!), gays tend to share some unpleasant character traits, such as effeminacy or lack of masculinity, cliquishness, and lewdness. Sullivan acknowledges many of these things, but attempts to give them a positive spin. For example, concerning the frivolity of gay life, he praises it for its "irony or exhibitionism or irresponsibility" and its insight "that some things lead nowhere and mean nothing" (pp. 204-5). There is something to this, but it is a limited perspective. From the point of view of someone trying to assess the romantic possibilities (--from my point of view), I disagree that something very good can be built on such things.
Rating:
Summary: Gay and Normal
Review: Author Andrew Sullivan's book is a breath of fresh air in the field of gay studies. Mr. Sullivan present different viewpoints on the subject of homosexuality (Prohibitionist, Liberationist, Conservative and Liberal) To present any argument you must understand the position of your opponent and I welcome the chance here ( in this book) to do that.
Not everyone in the gay studies filed has embraced the book and some have spoken very publicly against it, which is funny to me since everyone wants freedom of speech and equal rights, but how quickly we are to condemn those whose viewpoints do not reflect our own. In closing Mr. Sullivan makes some valid arguments for the legalization of same-sex marriage, which he claims would not undermine heterosexual marriage, but may actually strengthen it. Finally someone who commands that we think about ouselves and our culture, who does not give the reader a sugary sweet view of what the world could, should be like.
Rating:
Summary: Gay and Normal
Review: Author Andrew Sullivan's book is a breath of fresh air in the field of gay studies. Mr. Sullivan present different viewpoints on the subject of homosexuality (Prohibitionist, Liberationist, Conservative and Liberal) To present any argument you must understand the position of your opponent and I welcome the chance here ( in this book) to do that.
Not everyone in the gay studies filed has embraced the book and some have spoken very publicly against it, which is funny to me since everyone wants freedom of speech and equal rights, but how quickly we are to condemn those whose viewpoints do not reflect our own. In closing Mr. Sullivan makes some valid arguments for the legalization of same-sex marriage, which he claims would not undermine heterosexual marriage, but may actually strengthen it. Finally someone who commands that we think about ouselves and our culture, who does not give the reader a sugary sweet view of what the world could, should be like.
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