For a fresh perspective on my favorite gay journalist and sometime political pundit, Andrew Sullivan, freelance journalist Norah Vincent offers another perspective in her timely news story in The Los Angeles Times.

On Tuesday of this week, Vincent's article Sex: the Public Versus the Private tells us that there are at least two circumstances under which journalists have both a right and an obligation to publish details about a public person's private life; first, if the behaviors or events in question are illegal or immoral; and second, if it can be shown that the subject lied publicly about them.

Vincent tells us that anything a journalist writes about any person, public or private, must have a verifiable basis in fact. This goes without having to be said. However, if you glance through various newspapers and online outlets these days, you might be persuaded few people agree about what is fair game for news and commentary. How true that holds for gossip tabloids serving the gay ghetto.

Signorile, back on May 25th, set out to expose Sullivan as a hypocrite. Andrew Sullivan calls himself a Liberal; that is, a Liberal in the Classical context. But, in the gay ghetto, where anyone to the right of Leon Trotsky is branded a reactionary, Sullivan is demonized as a conservative. Sullivan has written in passionate support of gay marriage and commitment and has been very critical of the subculture of the gay ghetto. Thus, in the grand tradition of setting up straw men, Signorile has deluded himself and duped a few others into thinking he has unmasked Sullivan as a Mr. Goodie Two Shoes pervert. In fact, all Signorile has done is sling mud at a self-declared enemy.

Vincent puts Signorile's case to the journalism criteria above. Did Sullivan do anything illegal? No. What's more, he did nothing morally reprehensible,
since he both disclosed his own HIV status and sought others who shared that same status. Unprotected sex between two consenting adults who are both HIV positive is not a crime. Unprotected sex is a crime when a perpetrator has a sexually transmitted disease and fails to inform his partner of it. Sullivan did neither. And so, by our first criterion, his escapades are emphatically --- none of our business!

What about lying? Again, Sullivan is innocent. He has always been candid in print about his sex life, and when confronted with Signorile's accusations -- which to anyone would feel unjustifiably intrusive -- Sullivan admitted the truth, which is more than we can say for our immediate past president. So much for our second criterion.

It is strange that Signorile chided Sullivan for his judgmental attitude toward Bill Clinton during the impeachment hearings. There is a fundamental distinction here that Bill Clinton's apologists and Sullivan's foes, often the same people, conveniently miss. Most people didn't think Clinton should have been impeached because he lied about it to the media. None of these is an impeachable offense. Rather, they thought Clinton should have been impeached because he broke the law. He commited perjury. It didn't matter what he'd lied about. It was the fact he'd done it under oath. Ordinary people go to jail for perjury. Clinton should have, too.

When Clinton lied to the media about Monica Lewinsky, he didn't break the law, but in this case, our second rule applies. Because public and private citizens should be accountable as journalists for the truth of what they say, Clinton's public lie justified subsequent exposure of the facts, however personal those facts were. If, however, Clinton had merely said "no comment" or if he had made it clear that he would not answer questions about his personal life except under lawful subpeona, then reporters would have no right to pry. They would have pried anyway, but we're talking about how journalists should behave, not how they do behave.

Andrew Sullivan, like Bill Clinton, has made a lot of enemies. But, unlike Bill Clinton, he has done nothing wrong. He has been more forthright than most politicians, and he took no oath of office. Sullivan's private foibles, if they can be called such, are not ours to address.

As I succinctly pointed out in an earlier posting of mine, the issue was never really about Andrew Sullivan per se. The subtext of my posting was to point out how Sexual McCarthyism has become the standard for what passes as journalism in the gay ghetto tabloid press these days.

Norah Vincent's timely Los Angeles Times article earlier this week (June 12) underscores why Signorile's practice of Sexual McCarthyism plagues the gay tabloid press. It is fitting such tabloids are viewed with deep suspicion and contempt as we do the same for The National Enquirer.

[ June 14, 2001: Message edited by: SunDogg ]

[ June 15, 2001: Message edited by: Horndogg ]