Sullivan doesn't like Bozell's "sewer" remark

Sullivan doesn’t like Bozell’s “sewer” remark

Brent Bozell wrote a column expressing his disgust that the Tony Awards have turned into little more than a showcase for homosexuals and their agenda (note to David Horowitz: there is a homosexual agenda). Andrew Sullivan in turn nominated Bozell for the John Derbyshire Award, which he gives to individuals he sees as hopelessly retrograde on the subject of gay liberation. Here is an e-mail I sent to Andrew Sullivan about it, with a cc to Sullivan’s most outspoken and admiring supporter, David Horowitz.

Subject: Your comments on Brent Bozell’s criticism of the Tony Awards
Mr. Sullivan:
You call yourself a conservative. If being a conservative means anything, it means that one respects the fact that there are certain unchanging and unavoidable features of human life. Ironically, you yourself claim to be making a conservative argument when you say that homosexuality is a naturally occurring phenomenon in a small minority of the population and therefore should be embraced and recognized by society. However, there is another unchanging and unavoidable feature of human life which you stoutly deny—the fact that the great majority of people regard homosexuality as an abnormal behavior or a vice. It follows that they will regard the public celebration of homosexuality, especially when broadcast into their homes as part of a popular entertainment program, as, at the least, a sign of advanced decadence. If you were really the conservative that you say you are, you would accept the fact that the negative judgment or strong dislike of homosexuality is natural and is not going to go away, and that the best you can hope for is a kind of tolerance in which homosexuals will be left alone so long as they don’t shove their homosexuality in everyone’s face. Thus, if you were a conservative and didn’t want people saying the sort of harsh things that Brent Bozell says about gays, you would admit that maybe it’s not such a great idea for homosexuals to be flaunting their sexual identity in a broadcast medium before an audience of millions. But the reality, of course, is that you don’t accept the existence of any negative judgment that people have toward homosexuality. And therefore you and your fellow liberationists feel compelled to do everything you can to uproot that negative judgment through continual “moral correction”—i.e. brainwashing—in the media, the schools, and so on.
Some conservative you are.
Regards,
Lawrence Auster

Andrew Sullivan wrote:

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “Even the Tony show’s host, married Australian actor Hugh Jackman, has a gay connection. He’ll debut on Broadway this fall in “The Boy From Oz,” a musical based on the life of the late bisexual Australian songwriter and performer Peter Allen. The entire show seemed to announce that the powers that be in the theater community are steering the industry from mass culture to subculture. Broadway is no longer a stage. It’s a sewer.”—Brent Bozell, horrified that Broadway’s homosexuals no longer pretend to be straight in public. Here’s a simple question: is it still kosher in conservative circles to describe an entire group of people as representing a “sewer”?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 17, 2003 02:39 AM | Send

Comments

One might also point out that all the sins mentioned in the Ten Commandments are “natural.” That’s why they’re there. Although homosexuality is not among them, the “naturalness” of the sins that are named should deprive the homosexual-lib movement of one of its chief arguments.

Posted by: frieda on June 17, 2003 7:16 AM

Who was it that said, “The love that dare not speak its name is now the love that won’t shut up.”?

Posted by: Mitchell Young on June 17, 2003 11:08 AM

I think it was a line in a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca…

Posted by: eufrenio on June 17, 2003 4:55 PM

Posted by: frieda on June 17, 2003 07:16 AM
“One might also point out that all the sins mentioned in the Ten Commandments are “natural.” That’s why they’re there. Although homosexuality is not among them, the “naturalness” of the sins that are named should deprive the homosexual-lib movement of one of its chief arguments.”

it falls under the sixth. and for the ones who have made homosexuality their god, the first also.

Posted by: abby on June 17, 2003 5:44 PM

Gay Broadway’s coming-out party—will there now be a price to be paid? The Tony’s have gotten low ratings for at least the past several years and it will be interesting to see to what extent the flaunting of Gay Broadway turns off midwestern TV viewers as well as visitors for whom the romance that is Broadway has long been a major selling point for New York.

Posted by: Dan on June 17, 2003 10:44 PM

Here’s a connection between this topic and the topic of homosexual marriage, discussed elsewhere on the site. There’s a crucial difference between a) homosexuals as actors, designers, writers, practitioners of other crafts and professions, and b) homosexuals as political activists, Boy Scouts leaders, and candidates for officially recognized same-sex marriages. In category (a) they’re judged by meritocratic standards in their professions. That’s why the heterosexual majority has no problem hiring them or watching their theater productions. In category (b) they’re judged by their sexual practices, and in fact they insist that we so judge them (favorably), irrespective of whatever services they may perform in the marketplace that customers are willing to pay for.

This is the distinction that is so often forgotten by people who discuss whether the homosexual movement has an agenda. Those who say no always point to facts in category (a), whereas the agenda is category (b).

Posted by: frieda on June 18, 2003 3:35 PM

I agree with Frieda on the difference between people doing the work they do, and people pursuing an agenda. And my particular disagreement with David Horowitz is that he denies there is a homosexual agenda, or, rather, he says that only the most extreme gay liberationists have an agenda and that no other gays do. He fails to see the palpable fact that Andrew Sullivan—whom he constantly invokes as his model of a good homosexual citizen—has an extremely radical agenda.

Horowitz’s general approach, I think, is to target only what he sees as the most extreme elements of leftism and make them the whole problem, while giving a pass to the less extreme elements of leftism, which he calls conservatism.

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on June 18, 2003 4:57 PM

Derb here. I don’t think it is quite correct to say that Sullivan gives the Derbyshire Award only “to individuals he sees as hopelessly retrograde on the subject of gay liberation.” I believe I recall its having been given for non-gay-related comments… in so far as there can be said to be such things in the mental universe of a proselytizing homosexual.

I am myself thinking of instituting a Sullivan Award, perhaps to be given to writers whose “lifestyle” has reduced them to a state in which they have to swallow a bucket of pills eight times a day just to stay alive, but who none the less insist that said “lifestyle” is healthful, fun, normal, and worthy of full social sanction—who insist, in fact, that any citizen who fails to “celebrate” said “lifestyle” is a twisted, hate-filled psychopath. But to whom could I possibly give such an award?

Posted by: John Derbyshire on June 18, 2003 7:35 PM

John,

The Sullivan award is long overdue. I suppose, in these licentious contemporary times, there would be a plethora of over-qualified candidates!

Posted by: Peter Phillips on June 18, 2003 8:51 PM

Mr. Derbyshire:

My nominee is Marc Racicot, now campaign manager for George W. Bush.

Posted by: Carl on June 18, 2003 10:43 PM

It is a real treat to see Mr. Derbyshire here. His humorous and now classic article on New Jersey’s infamous “poet” is a must read for any newcomers here: http://www.olimu.com/WebJournalism/Texts/Commentary/OwlExploding.htm.

Posted by: P Murgos on June 18, 2003 10:51 PM