La Paglia just wrote a letter to the Guardian in response to Richard Goldstein’s recent campaign against non-leftist homosexuals. Here it is:
Richard Goldstein has waged a tedious, defamatory campaign against Andrew Sullivan for years (Rightwing gays are a new force in US politics, July 8) Sullivan has won an enormous following in the US because of the high quality and wide range of his writing, as well as his strong presence on television. He is witty, incisive, and erudite – everything Goldstein, a bilious mediocrity, is not.
To attribute Sullivan’s national prominence to his having pandered to conservative prejudice against gays is rank nonsense.
Similarly, Norah Vincent, a rising star among syndicated columnists, is an independent who follows no party line. Like me, she is a libertarian.
Goldstein’s attacks against me are laughable since he borrows so freely from my ideas. My championing of pornographers, prostitutes and drag queens is also well known. As for my politics, I am a member of the Democratic party who voted twice for Bill Clinton and, in 2000, for the far left Ralph Nader.
Man, I miss her.
The Dish 