ANDREW SULLIVAN (1963–)

 

By the mid-1980s, a shocking new breed of gay luminary was emerging: the “normal” mainstream homosexual who desires inclusion more than revolution and freedom more than protection. Andrew Sullivan, a British contrarian, became editor of the political magazine the New Republic and quickly emerged as a leading conservative thinker. His 1989 Atlantic essay “Here Comes the Groom,” reprinted below, made an early public case for gay marriage. His 1995 book Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality, continued this trajectory, arguing that marriage, which he calls “a profoundly humanizing, traditionalizing step,” is “ultimately the only reform that truly matters.”