Andrew Solomon
Andrew Solomon
Andrew Solomonis a writer on politics, culture and psychology, who lives in New York and London. He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, Travel and Leisure, and other publications on a range of subjects, including depression, Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, Libyan politics, and Deaf politics. His book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression won the 2001 National Book Award, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, and was included in...
ProfessionWriter
gay people stories
The more gay people can tell our stories, the more other people will accept gay people.
gay happy-life perception
What has become clear to me is that it is not the inherent nature of being gay that causes such a reduced life; it is, rather, the social circumstances around being gay: the perceptions of it and the cultural norms that it is said to violate. As some of those norms have changed, I have been able to be gay, to have a marriage, to have a family, and to have - if there is wood to knock on - a fortunate and happy life.
despair
Despair is part of love.
loss would-be different
If your love didn't always contain the possibility of loss, it would be very different from human love as we know it.
despair mysterious stills
Science still won't explain the mysterious nature of love and despair.
long ironic church
It seems particularly ironic that a church that at one stage, a long time ago, fought to redefine marriage should now be so opposed to these attempts to redefine marriage.
campaigns polygamy sentiments
The campaign against polygamy, around which a lot of anti-Mormon sentiment was organized, seems horrific to me.
gay being-gay
Being gay is immutable.
father thinking tradition
I grew up in a very rationalist household. My father, in particular, came from that mid-century tradition of thinking science will ultimately explain everything.
feet feelings lucky
I don't understand what the nature of God is. But I do have the feeling that I'm at some feet, and lucky to be there.
christian acceptance names
I have found that the greatest stories of acceptance and love and the ugliest stories of hideous cruelty and abuse have equally been perpetrated in the name of Christian faith.
gay differences people
It does seem to me, though, that there is a difference between the Mormon Church saying, "We don't accept gay people within the Church; we don't accept gay marriage within the Church; we don't accept people who act on their homosexual desires within the Church;" and trying to interfere with what happens outside of the Church. That seemed to me to be an abomination.
church polygamy feels
If the Mormon Church still supported polygamy, and if it appeared to be a system that was not exploitative of women, I wouldn't feel that it's my place to forbid it.