Coming Out Conservative: An Autobiography

TWO years ago, Marvin Liebman--former director of the Committee of One Million, cofounder of Young Americans for Freedom, and a veteran conservative activist and fundraiser--published an open letter in NATIONAL REVIEW announcing his homosexuality. Now, in this autobiography, he seeks to bring these apparently contradictory "parts of my life together." Liebman's career has been a sequence of enthusiasms-- Communism, anti-Communism, show business, conversion from Judaism to Roman Catholicism--each of which, he says, led to ultimate disappointment or failure. All the while, he was carrying on a furtive but incredibly promiscuous homosexual lffe, a life he long hated but has at last come to accept. The reader cannot help being glad that this troubled man has finally found peace. Unfortunately, this peace comes at the price of a certain obtuseness. Despite a lifetime of friendship from conservatives who knew his secret perfectly well, Liebman contends that the conservative movement lestors with the hatred of homosexuals. Despite his political sophistication, Liebman refuses to recognize that the agenda of the gay-rights movement has moved far beyond its original request for tolerance and compassion. And despite his professed religious faith, he simply cannot understand that any reason but bigotry could compel a person to object to the innumerable anonymous sexual encounters described here so graphically.

--DAVID FRUM

COPYRIGHT 1992 National Review, Inc.
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