Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality.

• Author: Smith, Bradley P.

By Andrew Sullivan.(*) New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1995. Pp. x, 212. $22.00.

I

This year marks the tenth anniversary of Bowers v. Hardwick,(1) in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Federal Constitution does not guarantee a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy.(2) Since Bowers, judicial and legislative controversies over society's treatment of gay men and lesbians have intensified.(3) In the context of these often-bitter disputes, Andrew Sullivan's Virtually Normal responds to the question of how society should deal with its homosexual minority (p. 18). Sullivan argues that all public discrimination against homosexuals should be eliminated, but he rejects the pursuit of laws that would prevent private parties from discriminating in areas such as employment and housing (p. 171).(4) He thus articulates what might be termed a "classic" liberal position, in which the state takes a "neutral" position with regard to sexual orientation.

Sullivan develops a series of powerful responses to the most common arguments launched against gay men and lesbians. Virtually Normal thus provides valuable ammunition for the battles over lesbian and gay equality, and Sullivan offers an interesting rhetorical model for how lesbians and gay men might best respond to their legal and political challenges. Ultimately however, Sullivan's argument rests on definitional assumptions that do not reflect legal reality. Moreover, his exclusion of antidiscrimination civil rights laws from his politics lacks a principled basis and exposes the weaknesses of his own argument.

II

Sullivan builds his argument about homosexuality by exploring and critiquing what he identifies as four modern theories of how society should handle its gay and lesbian members. He labels these theories "prohibitionist" (p. 19), "liberationist" (p. 56), "conservative" (p. 94), and "liberal" (p. 133). After examining these four viewpoints, Sullivan presents his own "politics of homosexuality" (p. 169) as a reasoned response to the other theories' deficiencies.

Prohibitionists, according to Sullivan, view homosexuality as an aberration (p. 20). They believe that homosexual acts should be punished and that society should structure itself to discourage the "temptation" to engage in such acts (pp. 21-22).(5) They view homosexuality as a choice that should be socially disfavored (p. 25). In response, Sullivan chides those who would rely on the Bible to outlaw homosexual conduct as picking and choosing from the Bible's various prohibitions (pp. 27-28). He then confronts the natural law condemnation of homosexuality by explaining both that homosexual conduct appears throughout history (and thus cannot be properly considered unnatural) (p. 33) and that modem Western societies do not look to the procreative nature of sexual conduct to establish its legality (p. 54).(6)

Moving to the other end of the political spectrum, Sullivan examines the liberationist position. Drawing on Michel Foucault's ideas of social construction,(7) the liberationists argue that majority culture has constructed the term "homosexual" to categorize and control sexual behavior (pp. 63, 66-67). Liberationists thus seek an end to sexual categories and a return to the more amorphous concept of "pleasures."(8) While granting the intellectual appeal of liberationism (pp. 66-67), Sullivan attacks the theory's pessimistic view of dominant power structures by pointing to the advances that lesbians and gay men have made toward equality (pp. 75-76). Sullivan also points out the inherent irony in liberationist politics, in that, while attempting to cast away oppressive power structures, liberationists are virtually obligated to play power games themselves (pp. 77, 92).

Sullivan distinguishes the third group, conservatives, from prohibitionists because conservatives do not believe that homosexual conduct should be criminalized or that homosexuality is necessarily a choice (pp. 96-97). Rather, conservatives maintain that public acceptance of homosexuality undermines...