I will keep my comments less tortuous and on the topic. The sexual promiscuity hypocrisy charge made against Andrew Sullivan is ludicrous. Signorile conceded that fact. Why? Because Andrew Sullivan never hid the fact he was HIV positive. He wrote about his HIV positive status 5 years ago in a publicly available book.

Andrew Sullivan says it is true that he had an AOL screenname/profile for which he used to meet other gay men. He also states that his HIV positive status was always included in his profile. Sullivan also admits he posted an ad some time ago on a website devoted for other men who had unprotected sex. Again, he posted at that site as an HIV postive poster. The fact that he posted anonymously, and did not use his real name, is common amoung all men posting at those sites. Even those of us posting at this CFS site post anonymously without using our real names. There is nothing hypocritical about posting at sites with an anonymous name. That appears to be the rule for posting these days. I have yet to see people on this site or other sites posting with their real names. No surprise there.

So, now that we have dispensed with ludicrous allegation of hypocrisy, we are forced to face the real storyline -- Sexual McCarthyism. The question before us is WHY SHOULD ANYONE IN PUBLIC OR PRIVATE LIFE BE FORCED TO RESPOND?

The right and only correct answer is NO-ONE'S LEGAL, CONSENSUAL, ADULT PRIVATE LIFE SHOULD BE PLUNDERED, EXPOSED, AND EXPLOITED FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES.

When people embrace Sexual McCarthyism to lend legitimacy to the premises of their arguments that the most intensely personal details of someone's private life can and should be used for political purposes, then we no longer have a right to privacy or to any personal space.

Embracing Sexual McCarthyism does not lend legitimacy to the premises of our arguments for invading the private and personal aspects of our lives. This is probably why many Gay media outlets have not wasted a lot of time and space to the Andrew Sullivan story.

Millions of people, gay, straight, and bisexual use the Internet to chat, meet, hook up, find dates, and on and on. Many of these people value its privacy and anonymity, qualities that are particularly cherished by gay people often hounded for their sex lives, and threatened with exposure, blackmail or petty gossip on a daily basis. These gay men now need to know: The Internet is not a safe place. Why is the Internet not a safe place anymore?

A poisonous segment of the gay activist world is policing the Internet for any deviators from the party-line. For political reasons, the end result justifies and legitimizes Sexual McCarthyism. If you don't toe the party-line or if you simply rub one of the activists the wrong way, your right to privacy and personal space is violated by these activists in the name of politics. Yes indeed, the end truly justifies the means. That is the bottom story-line.