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Andrew_Sullivan.jpg Andrew Sullivan Andrew Sullivan (born 10 August 1963) is an Anglo-American journalist and intellectual, known both for his heterodox personal-political identity (HIV-positive, sexually gay, politically Tory/conservative, religiously Catholic) as well as for his pioneering efforts in the field of weblog journalism.
BiographySullivan was born in South Godstone, England, and received a B.A. in modern history from Oxford University (Magdalen College). He went on to earn a masters degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in political science at Harvard, writing his dissertation on conservative British philosopher Michael Oakeshott. In 1986 he began his career with The New Republic magazine, serving as its editor from 1991 to 1996. In that position, he expanded the magazine from its traditional roots in political coverage to cultural politics and the issues around them. This produced much in the way of groundbreaking journalism, but also courted several high-profile controversies. Some longtime subscribers, who had never forgiven Sullivan for firing veteran political writer Morton Kondracke when he took over, regularly took umbrage at the articles by Camille Paglia he published. One particular article about Hillary Clinton led to some readers writing letters to Martin Peretz, saying they intended to cancel their subscriptions. Ruth Shalit, then a rising star in political journalism, got the magazine in legal trouble over a lengthy cover story she wrote about racial divisions among reporters at the Washington Post. While the story was controversial in and of itself, being read by some as suggesting it was a bad idea for newspapers to seek out more minority employees, Shalit wrote that a city official praised by the paper at one point was eventually indicted, when in reality he had not been. The man sued for libel. Shalit, it would turn out, was not only sloppy in some of her reporting but a plagiarist, leading to the magazine running corrections and retractions of parts of her articles, until she went so far as to plagiarize work from David Broder, the veteran reporter widely considered the dean of the Washington press corps. Sullivan eventually had to discipline her with a four-month suspension and she was reassigned to features and book reviews before leaving the magazine. Later, others would allege she fabricated passages in her stories as well. Race played a major part in the biggest controversy at the magazine under Sullivan. He decided in 1994 to publish excerpts from Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's The Bell Curve, which argued that on the whole blacks were less intelligent than whites. Almost the entire staff of the magazine threatened to resign if material which they considered racist was allowed to be published; when the issue did come out, it ran with lengthy rebuttals from more than a dozen writers and contributors. Late in his tenure, Sullivan published the first articles by a young fact-checker who had been making a big complaint around the office about how Shalit had been allowed to get away with what she did for so long. Stephen Glass had himself a career, although it would be Sullivan's successor, Michael Kelly, who would be chiefly responsible for enabling the fabricated stories that eclipsed Shalit's in embarassing the magazine several years later. Even his departure is not without controversy. Opinions still differ, even among those who wrote for The New Republic at the time, about whether he was fired or quit after losing a bitter power struggle with Leon Wieseltier, the magazine's literary editor and a longtime friend of Peretz's. In any event, Sullivan had only recently gone public with his HIV status, and was likely to be taking a break for treatment soon. Later, Sullivan wrote for The New York Times Magazine briefly; his termination in 2002 (http://slate.msn.com/?id=2065829) — Sullivan describes himself as having been "banned" — is widely seen as a burr under Sullivan's saddle. Sullivan is often compared to lesbian academic Camille Paglia, another gay intellectual who argues from a non-leftist perspective. Sullivan has described himself as being a South Park Republican, a phrase he coined in 2001 and has gained considerable currency since. Sex scandalIn May 2001, Village Voice columnist Michael Musto revealed that Sullivan had anonymously posted advertisements for "bareback" sex (anal or oral sex without a condom) on America Online and the now-defunct website barebackcity.com. Subsequently, journalist Michelangelo Signorile wrote about the scandal in a front-page article in a New York gay magazine, LGNY, igniting a storm of controversy. In the advertisements, Sullivan noted that he was HIV-positive. Sullivan's critics have argued that it was hypocritical of Sullivan to engage in this kind of sexual activity while simultaneously arguing against gay sexual promiscuity; they claim that the vision of gay sexuality presented in Sullivan's writing is at odds with the activities he was revealed to be engaging in. They also charge that because Sullivan was HIV-positive, it was unsafe for him to engage in sex without a condom. Sullivan's critics argue that it is unfair for Sullivan to criticize Bill Clinton's sexual indiscretions as "reckless" while engaging in unprotected sex himself. Sullivan's defenders respond that he only had bareback sex with consenting adults who were also HIV-positive. According to Sullivan, this significantly reduced the risk inherent in his behavior, and he has derided what he called a "thin reed of evidence" of the existence of "reinfection," which, according to some medical experts, heightens the destruction caused by the virus. His supporters have also argued that it was a violation of his privacy to publish information about his sex life. Sullivan has called the scandal "sexual McCarthyism". Sullivan supporters also argue that those who revealed the details about his sex life were motivated by a desire for payback, because they disagreed with his politics and his comments about the gay community. His detractors respond that his hypocrisy was reason enough to publish the stories. BloggingIn late 2000 he began his blog The Daily Dish (andrewsullivan.com (http://www.andrewsullivan.com)). Within the year it would play a role not only in the sex-scandal controversy, but in another flareup raising questions about his journalistic ethics, when he announced that he would be accepting a sponsorship to write it from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobby for the industry that he credited with saving his life, but which has also been criticized for its practices in AIDS-affected areas of the Third World. The controversy lay in Sullivan's initial refusal to disclose the relationship in writing outside his blog, even though much of that often touches on drug manufacturers and their policies in poor countries. He dropped the sponsorship in the ensuing uproar. Nonetheless, in the wake of 9/11, his blog soon became one of the most popular political blogs on the Internet (by the middle of 2003, it was receiving about 300,000 unique visits per month). Between starting his blog and ending his New Republic editorship, Sullivan wrote two works on homosexuality, arguing for its social acceptance on conservative grounds. His writing appears in a number of widely-read publications. He currently serves as the American columnist for The Sunday Times of London. Sullivan's blog has been characterized by a high level of emotionality (sometimes charging into stridency), a willingness to admit doubts and entertain changes of mind, and hostility towards The New York Times. In February 2005 Sullivan decided to go on "hiatus for a few months" after nearly five years of continuous blogging. [1] (http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2005_01_30_dish_archive.html#110723289508671920) By this time his blog was receiving over 50,000 visitors a day, and among the most linked-to blogs in the world. Sullivan planned to work on a book, do some traveling, and focus on other projects. His plan is to return to blogging "full steam" in roughly nine months. As of this writing in early 2005, Sullivan has faced many challenges in his career, and still regarded and respected by many well-known conservative writers for major publications in the U.S. and Europe, as well as many prominent freelance political journalists as being one of a very few top objective conservative political writers in the world. In addition, Mr. Sullivan is known as a being a champion and a major voice for the civil rights of gay and lesbian people in the U.S. and elsewhere. He is a popular speaker at major universities and civic organizations in the U.S., as well as being a frequent guest on many national news and political commentary television shows.
List of works
Remarks on homosexuality and the 2004 electionI've been trying to think of what to say about what appears to be the enormous success the Republicans had in using gay couples' rights to gain critical votes in key states. In eight more states now, gay couples have no relationship rights at all. Their legal ability to visit a spouse in hospital, to pass on property, to have legal protections for their children has been gutted. If you are a gay couple living in Alabama, you know one thing: your family has no standing under the law; and it can and will be violated by strangers. I'm not surprised by this. When you put a tiny and despised minority up for a popular vote, the minority usually loses.[2] (http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2004_10_31_dish_archive.html#109949972677510025) Sullivan reluctantly decided to support John Kerry's presidential campaign due to his dissastisfaction with the handling of the post-war situation in Iraq by the Bush administration and their views on gay rights. External links
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