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Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic and one of today's most prominent gay writers, attended Pat Robertson's 70th birthday party—and was shocked at how darn nice everybody was. "They seemed neither fanatics nor bigots," he writes in this week's New York Times Magazine. They had a sense of humor about themselves." More importantly, Sullivan writes, he was reminded that his cultural opponents are people—good people. "One of the deepest problems of politics in the culture war is the reflexive imputation of bad motives to the opposition and the demonization that inevitably follows. The corollary is believing that we ourselves are capable of nothing but good, and so failing to see where we also go wrong. … Similarly, there are many liberal critics of Robertson who haven't done a fraction of what he has done to help the poor or the sick or the disadvantaged. It doesn't make them wrong and him right, but it does add a context to the argument. If a man pleads good intentions, it's not unreasonable to ask him for the evidence. Robertson, to his credit, has it. That doesn't change the fact that he is still, in John McCain's words, an agent of intolerance. But it doesn't make him, in John McCain's other words, a force of evil." Sullivan concludes his article by noting that if both sides of the culture war have failed to see the other side as human beings—as seems to be the case—"it's time for a truce."

"I don't think religious conservatives have lost any of their power," Jerry Falwell said in a news conference announcing a seven-month voter registration drive. "I think they've lost their enthusiasm." Instead of trying to mobilize Christians through voter guides (like the Christian Coalition), Falwell hopes to register 10 million new voters through church meetings. Family of Christian Research Institute founder wants Hanegraaff's resignation

Walter Martin's relatives have become more vocal in their criticism of Christian Research Institute president Hank Hanegraaff, who replaced Martin in 1979. Martin's widow left the CRI board in 1996, and family members sent a letter to Hanegraaff detailing their objections in October. Now their calls for his resignation have reached the Los Angeles Times.

"Controversy may be the most overvalued Hollywood commodity this side of Arnold Schwarzenegger," writes Chicago Tribune movie writer Mark Caro. "Yet filmmakers and distributors continue to court it, convinced that the publicity it generates will give their works an edge in the overcrowded marketplace." He rattles of a list of films that received a lot of press but still bombed: Showgirls, Two Girls and a Guy, Black and White, Eyes Wide Shut, Fight Club, Crash, Priest (Caro goes on, but you get the idea). "The lesson may be that mainstream audiences aren't as interested in envelope-pushing depictions of sex and violence as industry types might assume."

"I can't say I felt queasy once making this movie." Christian Bale tells Entertainment Weekly of his current role as a serial killer. He had a much harder time playing the Prince of Peace. " I played Jesus in this TV thing [NBC's Mary, Mother of Jesus] after doing American Psycho—I had nightmares the whole time, like I haven't had since I was 10 years old. Sitting up in bed, sweating. Stigmata nightmares, those dreams where you think you're awake and then suddenly you realize you're still asleep and there was blood dripping from the ceiling and hitting my palms and things like that. And I was waking up going 'Aaaaaahh!'—rubbing my palms in the middle of the night, heart going. But [American Psycho character] Patrick Bateman? Nothing."

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April (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44