Arguing in support of Bloom in "The New Republic", Andrew Sullivan wrote: "Bloom was gay, and he died of AIDS. The salience of these facts is strengthened, not weakened, by Bloom's public silence about them. Of all people, he knew the centrality of the things about which we remain silent. ... Retaining the purity of that longing was his life's work. The reason he disliked the modern cult of easy sex was not because he scorned or feared the erotic life, but because he revered it. He saw sexual longing as supremely expressed in individual love, and he wanted his students to experience both to the fullest. He not merely understood Nietzsche; he imbibed him. But this awareness of the abyss moved Bloom, unlike Nietzsche, toward love. ... One day, one hopes, there will be a conservatism civilized enough to deserve him ..."