Reply #25: The corporate media chose Sully years ago to be The Official Voice of Gay America.

[QC]

That was my problem with him back in his salad days, when he seemed to be omnipresent. It was like the only LGBT person on any of the cable media programmers' Rolodexes was Sully (along with maybe Camille Paglia to fill in when The Official Voice of Gay America was busy applying his testosterone gel).

That was it.

No matter what the story, when "the gay perspective" was needed they called in Andrew Sullivan, whose usual contribution to the discussion was that those other homos generally are pretty awful, what with their libidinal pathology and their hairy backs and such, but Sully is much nicer than they, being a conservative Catholic with big, dewy eyes.

The purpose Sully served in those days was much like that which Armstrong Williams served for white racists--a member of a hated minority willing to validate the hate in exchange for a pat on the head. Thanks to him, right wing haters were able to say things like, "even Andrew Sullivan admits that {insert homophobic slur here}"

My problem with this was not that Sully had a media voice (he has every right to kiss the boot that kicks him) but that nobody else could. Things have improved considerably in the past few years, but for far too long, he was just about the only LGBT person in the general media.