By Andrew Sullivan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.

I

Andrew Sullivan's book has received a lot of attention. As the openly gay former editor of The New Republic, the British-born Roman Catholic Sullivan has been making the case for his distinctive version of lesbian and gay rights in the pages of that journal and on the op-ed pages of the nation's newspapers for some time. As an attractive and articulate gay man, he has been a personable interviewee and panelist on radio and television talk shows. As a Harvard Ph.D. in government who wrote a dissertation on Michael Oakeshott under the supervision of Harvey Mansfield, he has some claim to be taken seriously as a political theorist when he undertakes a book-length study of "the politics of homosexuality." Although he defends a strong and, in some aspects, surprisingly radical conception of the reach of lesbian and gay rights, the book disappoints in its aspiration to articulate a general framework for thinking through the relations between homosexuality and politics. Sullivan's failures as a theorist of democratic politics result from both idiosyncrasies of his personal history and situation and more systematic deficiencies in understanding sexuality and modern democracy.

Sullivan builds his case for lesbian and gay equality on two premises about the nature of homosexuality and the scope of democratic citizenship. He regards homosexuality as an inherent natural condition affecting a small number of persons who have no control over their desire for intimate relations with members of their own sex. For that reason, he sees homosexual citizens as entitled to equality before the law, that is, to be secure against invidious discrimination by the government. Sullivan insists that such equality is both the least and the most that homosexuals should seek. He separates himself from most advocates of lesbian and gay rights by insisting that protection against discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations should play no part in the politics of homosexuality; indeed, he claims that civil rights laws are inconsistent with fundamental principles of liberal democracy. On the other hand, his own principle turns out to reach farther than one might imagine:

An end to sodomy laws that apply only to homosexuals; . . . equal

protection of heterosexuals and homosexuals in law enforcement; an

equal legal age of consent to sexual activity for homosexuals and

heterosexuals . . .; inclusion of the facts about homosexuality in

the curriculum of every government-funded school, in terms no more

and no less clear than those applied to heterosexuality . . .;

recourse to the courts if any government body or agency can be

proved to engage in discrimination against homosexual employees;

equal opportunity and inclusion in the military; and legal

homosexual marriage and divorce. (p. 171-2)

Sullivan opposes both advocates of a different agenda for lesbian and gay equality and conservative opponents of any conception of equal citizenship for homosexuals. He proceeds by considering four distinct positions on homosexuality and society, labeling them "prohibitionist," "liberationist," "conservative," and "liberal": "They represent...