Generic Andrew Sullivan Critique
Jonathan Last asks,
If John Paul II had done everything exactly the same way during his papacy but had embraced gay marriage, do you think Andrew Sullivan would still consider him a “failure”?
From this, we can construct a fill-in-the blank Andrew Sullivan critique, saving everyone time:
If _______ had done everything exactly the same way ______ but had embraced gay marriage, do you think Andrew Sullivan would still _________?
For example:
If George W. Bush had done everything exactly the same way during his first term but had embraced gay marriage, do you think Andrew Sullivan would still have endorsed John Kerry?
Sully’s a brilliant commentator and well worth reading. Let’s just acknowledge this is a personal hot button issue for him and move on.
I don’t think Sullivan’s a brilliant commentator. He’s self-indulgent and quick to anger. Mean spirited, too.
With Sullivan, gay marriage is not a “hot button;†it’s his sine qua none.
Hitchens, Steyn, and Kaus: they’re often brilliant.
I don’t disagree on the others. Sullivan is gay. To condemn him for being fixated on gay marriage is like saying Martin Luther King, Jr. was obsessed with race.
I didn’t condemn Sullivan for, to use your words, “being fixated on gay marriage.”
I did note how important I think gay marriage is to Sullivan. But that’s not the same as condemning him. At least it’s not in my mind.
It’s ok to be fixated on something that’s very important to you. It’s idiocy to place something very important on a level where absolutely nothing can outweigh it, even things that are more important. Surely life and death issues, including defense issues, are more important than whether Andrew can visit his partner in the hospital. The latter issue is a big deal, but it’s not as important as whether his partner survives a terrorist attack to make it into the hospital to begin with, for instance.
It doesn’t help matters that Sullivan refuses to acknowledge that Kerry on gay marriage wasn’t a whole lot different from Bush when it really came down to it, and he also failed to consider that Bush was so much more progressive on the issue than any other Republican in history could ever have gotten away with while serving as president.