Today's New York Post gossip column, Page Six, reported it had called Andrew Sullivan for his comments about the LGNY story written by Michaelangelo Signorile. According to the New York Post, Andrew Sullivan has not responded to them or LGNY which published Signorile's story.

The problem here is twofold:

1. The Signorile story about Andrew Sullivan's alledged promiscuous hypocrisy has no legs to sustain its public interest.

2. Signorile's credibility.

Signorile's credibility is suspect. Signorile has always been very critical of Andrew Sullivan's conservative views. In the LGNY expose written by Signorile, Michaelangelo blasts Sullivan as a promiscuous hypocrite. Signorile makes the unsubstantiated and unverified claim that Sullivan was using an AOL account with links to backbacking websites advertising he was seeking sexual contact with other men. According to Signorile, the alledged AOL account name with the backbacking web links belonged to Sullivan. Signorile then went on to say that his sources for the information were two anonymous and confidential gay men who verified the AOL account belonged to Andrew Sullivan.

The problem with Signorile's expose in LGNY is that the story has no credibility. Signorile has relied on the anonimity of confidential sources whose credibility cannot be verified without exposing those sources to public scrutiny and examination. Signorile expects the reader of his expose to accept his story as truth without proof of his confidential sources' assertions.

A fair and honest person must ask themselves why any public figure must prove unsubstantiated allegations made by someone else. Isn't the burden of proof entirely on the shoulders of Michaelangelo Signorile?

I would strongly suggest that allegations of Sullivan's promiscuous hypocrisy made by Signorile should be backed up by substantiated proof. Confidential and anonymous sources do not meet the high standard of proof unless there is other independent verification of the facts to buttress his confidential sources.

At best, Signorile expose is entertaining. At it's worse, an example of yellow journalism to assassinate Sullivan's character even if his views are conservative. It ought to be beneath us to give license to the practice of yellow journalism as a way to silence prominent gay conservative writers -- no matter what ideological cause we subscribe to.