Author Sullivan Speaks on Gay Love, Marriage

Author and gay rights activist Andrew M. Sullivan included Emerson Hall 210 in his nationwide book tour yesterday, promoting his most recent work, Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex and Survival.

A crowd of about 70 people heard Sullivan speak about the political implications of HIV, the origins of homosexuality and love in homosexual relationships.

Sullivan began by reading passages from his book which he then discussed. He concluded by answering questions from the audience.

The event was sponsored by the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus (HGLC)--a Harvard alumni, faculty and staff organization.

Sullivan's new book is a series of three connected essays. The title refers to both recent changes in the prognosis of HIV patients, who can now reduce their viral load to undetectable levels, as well as to the conspicuous absence of love in the dialogue of gay and lesbian issues.

Regarding the first essay, "When Plagues End," Sullivan discussed his hypothesis that AIDS undermined heterosexual fears of gays and lesbians by promoting an image of gays and lesbians weakened by disease.

AIDS, Sullivan said, "evoked empathy and concern and hostility for homosexuals but more empathy and concern than hostility."

Sullivan noted that HIV is increasingly seen as something that may turn out to be a treatable, if not curable, disease and said he believes an end to the AIDS plague may be politically and socially problematic.

"My greatest fear is that as the plague recedes we will see the end of that cushion between [the gay community and] hostility," Sullivan told an audience member who asked for his thoughts on the death of Matthew Shepard, the college student killed last week in Wyoming because he was gay.

Sullivan also discussed the topic of his second essay, "Virtually Abnormal," which describes the ongoing debate about the causes of homosexuality. Sullivan said he is skeptical of, "simplistic genetic analysis."

He concluded by arguing that homosexuality is a, "confluence of genetic and environmental concerns."

Society can not posit homosexuality as being either purely genetic or as purely choice, he said.

"We must consider a third argument," Sullvian said. "[Homosexuality] is part genetic, part environmental, but not a choice."

In "If Love Were All," the book's final essay, Sullivan considers the notion of love in gay relationships which he says is too often overlooked in political and social discourse.

Sullivan said that the resiliency of homosexuality, through persecution and disease, proves the notion of an absence of love in gay relationships to be "patently untrue."

Sullivan said he thinks emphasizing the presence of love and friendship in homosexual relationships undermines the moral arguments against homosexual behavior put forth by the religious right, who claim to love the sinner, but not the sin.

"How is it possible," Sullivan questioned, "to love someone and deny his capacity for love?"