Andrew Sullivan is something of an oddity in the lesbian and gay press. An Oxford and Harvard educated Ph.D. in political science, he has made his journalistic name as a conservative, Roman Catholic, openly-gay author and commentator. For five years, between 1991 and 1995, he served as the editor of The New Republic, and he has been a consistent contributor to the New York Times, the Sunday Times (London) and numerous other magazines and newspapers. He continues to write a well-known daily weblog dealing with current political and cultural issues. Among his books are 1995’s Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality and Same Sex Marriage: Pro and Con, a reader that came out of the discussions surrounding the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996. During that time Sullivan testified before Congress in the debates over DOMA, engaging in a lively debate with former Secretary of Education William Bennett over the morality and social utility of same-sex marriage and making what Sullivan called his “conservative case for same-sex marriage”. Sullivan is a regular fixture on Sunday morning talk shows when gay and lesbian issues are discussed.

What makes Sullivan interesting as a public figure and journalist, even for those who disagree with him, is his unique position as a conservative gay man as well as outspoken activist in the public eye. This has sometimes made him something of a whipping boy in some parts of the gay and lesbian media.

Sullivan feels he hasn’t always been fairly treated in the gay press.

“The truth is, alas, that I have been subjected over the years to a consistent pummeling in the gay press,” said Sullivan in an email chat with the Gay & Lesbian Times. “Many gay readers think I’m a Jerry Falwell fan or some kind of extreme right-winger, because that is how the gay press has treated me. Even outlets that are not openly hostile still preface my work by declaring that I am a conservative, in ways that they would never do if I were a regular liberal. But the blog and TV and my work has, I hope, managed to convey a better impression of my work than gay press summaries. And when people do read me, they are often surprised.”

His reputation as a conservative comes both from his mainstream work, which has largely been about larger and more general political issues, and from the positions he continues to take about the gay and lesbian movement, opting for an integrationist and normalizing position against the views of other activists like Urvashi Vaid who have more closely identified our civil rights struggle with those of other oppressed groups. Sullivan says this reputation has, however, caused people to overlook much of his civil rights work, particularly, his work for marriage rights.

“It’s certainly true, for example, that I have done far more work promoting and defending marriage rights than almost anyone on the gay left,” writes Sullivan in one email. “But I’m not doing this for recognition from the gay press. It would be nice not to be demonized, but I don’t have my hopes up.”

Despite the criticism in the gay media, Sullivan hasn’t found his position as an out gay man to be of great concern to his editors in the mainstream press. He believes this is because his mainstream work is often not about specifically gay issues.

“I wish I weren’t so unique, or at least that my position as an openly gay guy who also writes about other issues weren’t so rare,” says Sullivan. “All I can say is that … my work for the New York Times or Time or The New Republic or The Times of London generally has little do with homosexuality. And my editors usually suggest or support my writing about other topics.”

For Sullivan, this being a non-issue is a sign of progress both in the coverage of and the treatment of gays and lesbians – of equality.

“I’m impressed by the coverage of gay issues by papers such as the New York Times or the Washington Post. I’m not sure they need to go much further,” says Sullivan.

But there is one more thing that would make Sullivan happy: “One thing I would like to see: the appointment of a straight male reporter to the gay beat at a major national daily,” says Sullivan. “You tend to get either gay reporters or female reporters on the case. That needs to change.”