Author: Andrew Sullivan

Now there’s a figure to rouse the country from its torpor. But the social conservatives need to find someone to speak at the convention. Why not Santorum or DeLay? Why not James Dobson?

Michael Petrelis has done some digging and found which hacks have given to which candidates. Big surprise: “President George Bush didn’t receive a single donation from any outlet or reporter in my search.” The New Yorker is, in particular, up to its eyeballs in reporter contributions to lefties and Dems.

A first-hand account.

A list – in his own words.

A belated response to Rich Lowry’s accusation that I am an intolerant, preachy moralist. His main points:

1. Santorum, he argues, is not in favor, as I argued, of direct application of Vatican principles to the civil law. Give me an example. On what issue does Santorum dissent from Vatican teaching on civil law? And by what principle would he draw that distinction? Please show me where Santorum has upheld secular values over theological ones.

2. Lowry then denies that the Allard-Musgrave amendment would bar civil unions and domestic partnerships. So why the second sentence that on its face bars not just marriage but all the “legal incidents”? And, yes, I do believe that there is disingenuousness on this. The religious right doesn’t want to go to the lengths of a constitutional amendment purely for the word “marriage.” The drafter of the amendment, Robert George, has said that it would effectively end any civil arrangements that mirrored marriage. Am I crazy to believe the guy who wrote it? Many Republican senators can read as well – and that’s one reason the vote against Allard-Musgrave would have been so devastating. If the backers of the FMA wanted to make sure that it allowed for civil unions, they could have drafted an amendment saying exactly that. They don’t and they didn’t.

3. Again, there is no reasonable dispute about the Virginia law. It was rooted quite clearly in animus against gay couples, was passed in a welter of furiously anti-gay rhetoric and is viewed by everyone except water-carriers for the far right as the equivalent of a new Jim Crow. But Lowry won’t criticize it or touch it. No enemies to the right.

4. Lowry then accuses me of bigotry, because I have described fundamentalists as a bloc motivated by anti-gay animus. Actually, I’m relieved that so many evangelicals are uncomfortable with this measure. But the leadership is foaming at the mouth about this. If Lowry were to watch Christian television lately, I’d love to see how he could believe otherwise. If he read my email in-tray, he might get a better idea. But I have long defended the fundamentalists’ religious freedoms, support their civil rights in every respect, would fight for their right to marry, to serve in the armed forces, be protected against discrimination and on and on. But they would deny all of that to gay people. So who’s the real intolerant here?

5. Lowry continues:

He says he supports my civil rights and I oppose his. Is Andrew capable of writing anything on this topic that’s not question-begging? Opponents of gay marriage like myself don’t believe that a civil right to marry someone of the same sex exists. We obviously aren’t for denying to gays the rights to speak, vote, own guns, etc. If Andrew reformulated the point in neutral, non-question begging terms, it would be something like: Lowry and I disagree about the definition of civil rights in this instance.

Yes: but it has long been a tactic of those who oppose civil rights to argue that they don’t. Those opposed to education integration denied that they were against black civil rights – they just wanted separate but equal education for both blacks and whites. Those who opposed inter-racial marriage said exactly the same thing – since blacks and whites were equally constrained by the anti-miscegenation laws, there was no discrimination, etc. It wasn’t that Bull Connor opposed civil rights. It’s just that he had a different conception of civil rights than his opponents! What cannot be denied, however, is that Lowry does indeed oppose a gay person’s right to enjoy the same rights he has – the right to marry, the right to serve your country, the right to be protected from workplace discrimination, and so on. It couldn’t be starker. Lowry believes that heterosexuals have civil rights as citizens and as heterosexuals. But gays should have no rights as homosexuals at all. He is defending his own privilege, while posturing as someone who believes in equality. It’s an old gambit. But it is as transparent as it is intolerant.

“I agree with your post on the Younger Generation not being able to vote Republican! I’m 18 and this will be the first time I have voted. How can I vote for them when my Brother is Gay and has been in a solid relationship for 5 years and President Bush sees them as a threat to marriage! HOW can they be a threat to other people’s marriage? A secretary having an affair with a married man is a threat to a marriage; my Brother and his partner are not! Homosexuality isn’t even an issue for my friends!”

The real story from the bloggers on the scene.

Which brand of Ketchup is more Republican? Yes, there’s a debate.

Wonderful piece in the New York Post today. Reading how the GOP hopes to use fear of gays to rev up their base across the country really makes me feel ill. Money quote:

When it’s one of your first presidential elections – as it is for me – it’s no trivial matter that voting Republican means a vote for a party catering to the worst prejudices about our brothers, sisters, friends from high school, college roommates, co-workers, bosses, drinking buddies and the like.
I’m not sure I can do it. And, if it weren’t for the War on Terror, I know few for whom it would even be a question.

The fact is: the GOP is using an attack on members of their own families to get a few votes in rural parts of swing states. They’ve used race in the past to achieve this kind of effect. Now gays are the new blacks.

One woman’s experience – and the vulnerability we still have to Jihadist terror.

FIFTY-SIX DECEITS: In “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Dave Kopel has the goods.

BUSH’S MEANS: Jon Chait tackles what he believes are the undemocratic impulses of this administration:

Bush and his allies have been described as partisan or bear-knuckled, but the problem is more fundamental than that. They have routinely violated norms of political conduct, smothered information necessary for informed public debate, and illegitimately exploited government power to perpetuate their rule. These habits are not just mean and nasty. They’re undemocratic.-

Read the whole thing. (Speaking of which, it’s good to find that the poor souls arrested for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts were finally released.)

THE TORIES CRUMBLE: It should have been easy: Tony Blair is on the rocks and a protest vote in two by-elections should go to the main opposition party. But it went to the left-wing Liberal Democrats. The Tories sank from second place to third, winning only 17 percent in one seat. Bottom line: Blair’s main threat is from his own party, not the opposition.

ARTHUR “KILLER” KANE: Of early punk rock fame in the New York Dolls. Another classic Brit obit – this time of an American. Money quote:

Their music was brutal, degenerate, loud – amplified by maximum distortion and feedback, and terribly, terribly bad; their one-time manager Malcolm McLaren (who went on to manage the Sex Pistols) described them as “chaos incarnate”. They released only two albums, including the presciently-entitled Too Much Too Soon.

Nice one.