Virtually Normal: An argument about homosexuality. By Andrew Sullivan. Picador; 211 pages; o14.99

recensione apparsa su The Economist, 6 gennaio 1996

Andrew Sullivan did not choose to be homosexual. Nor di it come naturally. For many years, as he launched himself on the successful journalistic career that brought him to the editorship fo the New Republic magazine before he turned 30, he wrestled with demons. He realised that he was uncomfortable in the heterosexual world, and the male-male bonding was the most important element in his life; but he dared not try to bond, because he dared not confess his love. In an arresting passage, he describes his understanding that he was homosexual as "like getting on a plane for the first time, being exilarated by its ascent, gazing with wonder out of the window...but then suddenly realising you are on he wrong flight, going to a destination which terrifies you, surronded by people who inwardly appal you. And you cannot get off ... You are one of them.

How society should respond to "them" is the subject of this book. It is an argument made with great sanity, reasonableness and gentleness; and that , to heterosexuals, like this reviewer, is a relief. Homosexuals, like any other group, do themselves no good by shrillness; and there has been a lot of shrillness lately. Mr. Sullivan explains that it was the coming of Aids, above all, that made homosexuals visible and vocal. But from justified anger and grief in the case, the argument has moved on to the shakier ground of "rights" and "protections"; and here Mr. Sullivan surveys the scene with welcome clear-headedness.

He divides the current intellectual and ideological arguments about homosexuality into four parties: prohibitionist, liberationist, conservative and liberal. Of these, the first (exemplified most potently by the Catholic Church) is the most neatly countered:undoubtedly because Mr Sullivan, as a practising Catholic, has agonised more than anything over how his sexuality may be squared with his faith. If homosexuality is partly the result of nature and partly of nurture, he argues, it cannot be against natural law. Besides, the Church has never argued that non-procreative unions in general (such as those of sterile couples) - or indeed celibate members of the clergy - go against the natural order. As for demanding that homosexuals should renounce homosexuals acts, this is not at all the same, Mr. Sullivan argues, ase demanding that that an alcoholic should eschew drink; for it is asking essentially that one human being should give up loving, or being loved, by anoher.

Mr. Sullivan goes on to dispose fairly convincingly of the arguments he enumerates. He decries the liberationist antics of ACT-UP and the practice of "outing", pointing out that many people are not confident enough in their sexuality to be labelled as anything, especially not in public. He rebukes conservatives for portraying gay relationship as anti-family and anti-marriage, when many gays both long for, nd would benefit from, just such structures to support them. And he attacks liberals for insisting not only that the state should be neutral towards homosexuals - as it should - but that individuals too should be nudged by law to put all prejudice aside. Antidiscrimination statues, he says with passion, are not the point. Homosexuals have a superficial kind of equality; they are, for the most part, born into it, because they can "pass" as heterosexual; yet at the deepest level they are less equal even than slaves were, because they cannot openly express their emotional commitment to the people they lore.

The core conclusion of the book is simple enough. All discrimination against homosexuals by the state open homosexuals should be allowed into the armed forces, and that they should be allowed a civil ceremony of marriage. Mr Sullivan reasons that when homosexuals are revealed as deeply traditional, patriotic and indeed conservative, there is no reason why society should not embrace them as different but valued parts of the whole. Homosexuals (being largely free of the distractions of children, which fetter heterosexuals) can become the movers and shakers, the volunteers, the inspiring teachers: as, indeed, many are already.

Yet certain difficulties remain. Mr Sullivan is keen to stress that homosexuality does not deny of threaten heterosexual primacy: instead, he says "it honours it by its rare and distinct otherness". This sits strangely with his other observation, which is that homosexuals are often drawn to play "ironic games with the culture".

The truth, as he knows well, is that gays are as various, and sometimes ambivalent, in their political attitudes as straight are; some homosexuals, like Mr Sullivan, engage the debate with civility, while other go out of their way to offend heterosexual sensibilities. And as long as that wing exists, heterosexuals will not be entirely happy with the thought of open homosexuals presiding in their churches, instructing their children or serving in the armed forces. They will plump for the uneasy (and, for homosexuals, often unbearable) status quo: homosexuals are acceptable, as long as they hide what they are.

Homosexual marriage, which would set up the structure of virtue, stability and commitment which sometims seems lacking in gay culture, might help somewhat. The opening of the armed forces might do the same. Both should certainly be tried. But in the end, having made those necessary improvements to the neutrality of the state, there seems no substitute for the removal of questions of sexual identity and practice from the public to the private realm. As Mr Sullivan admits, however deep sexual preference goes, it is a secondary consideration. He himself did not feel that he was a boy or a girl as he grew up: "I felt as me". It is the "me", the individual, who matters. As Mr Sullivan notes elsewhere, "basing identity on sexual desire is a dangerous absurdity".