PREVIEW: Andrew Sullivan
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Josh Szeps
4.5 • 905 Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andrew Sullivan is one of the most influential political writers of his generation.
He became the face of the gay marriage fight, after writing the first major American article arguing for it in 1989. His 1995 book, Virtually Normal, became a bible of the marriage equality movement.
Andrew had moved to America to get his PhD in politics from Harvard in the '80s, after studying at Oxford.
As a gay, British, Catholic conservative in America, he dominated debates - on television as well as in writing - on everything from AIDS to Iraq to Obama.
Andrew pioneered online journalism as one of the first superstar "bloggers". He wrote for the likes of London's Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, the Atlantic, Time magazine, the New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He now publishes The Weekly Dish on Substack.
Josh and Andrew discuss his gay marriage fight, the opposition from gays, the transgender culture wars, HIV/AIDS, the "LGBTQ+ community", Andrew's college life in Reagan's America, and how he won over a conservative country to a radical agenda (and how liberals might do it again).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Gahey, humans. |
| 0:03.0 | Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and what a treat, what a delight, dissecting |
| 0:09.5 | dangerous ideas, arguing for dangerous ideas. |
| 0:12.9 | Wrestling with dangerous ideas has been the life's work of today's guest, the one and |
| 0:17.8 | only Andrew Sullivan. |
| 0:19.9 | He was one of the most famous and influential |
| 0:22.7 | people arguing for gay marriage long, long, long, long, long before it was popular. He was |
| 0:28.6 | the first person to publish a major article about it, to write a major American article about it. |
| 0:33.1 | That was back in 1989. He wrote the book on it in 1995 that was entitled Virtually Normal. And when the |
| 0:40.7 | Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in the United States in 2013, many intellectuals and |
| 0:46.0 | political journalists looked at Andrew Sullivan and anointed him the most influential political |
| 0:51.4 | writer of his generation. He was born and raised in the UK. He went to |
| 0:56.4 | Oxford University, then he moved to America and got his PhD in politics at Harvard University. |
| 1:02.3 | And as a gay, British, Catholic, conservative in America, he began to dominate cultural debates. |
| 1:10.5 | You would see him on TV all the time, on Bill Maher's show. |
| 1:13.8 | You would read him in print in London's Daily Telegraph or the Sunday Times |
| 1:18.0 | or the Atlantic magazine or Time magazine or the New York Times magazine |
| 1:21.4 | or New York magazine arguing about everything from AIDS to the Iraq War |
| 1:26.4 | to Barack Obama's candidacy. |
| 1:29.6 | Andrew also pioneered online journalism as one of the first superstar bloggers. |
| 1:34.8 | He created the online blog, The Daily Dish, in the year 2000. |
| 1:39.0 | And around that time, a little fetus by the name of Josh Seppes became aware of Andrew's blog and subsequently |
... |
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