Category: Old Dish

What marriage rights are ultimately about: an end to emotional segregation.

COMMUNION WARS: How politicized will the Eucharist become? My latest column for Time.

I never believed I would live to write this sentence, but gay couples now have the right to marry in America. Congratulations to all those, gay and straight, who can now exercise their civil rights. There will be time for the inevitable reaction and renewed debate. But for a moment, I just want to wish all those embarking on a new life of love and commitment a happy life together.

THE BOOK: Blogging will be light this week as I’m on a week-long tour for my new book, “Same-Sex Marriage, Pro and Con: A Reader.”

purchase at amazon.com [USA]
purchase at amazon.ca [Canada]
purchase at amazon.co.uk [Europe]

The word “new” is stretching it a bit, since a large part of the book is unchanged from the first edition, brought out a few years ago. It’s an anthology of writing on the issue of marriage rights for gays, from every conceivable perspective. I did my best to include all the strongest pieces from the anti-gay marriage advocates, as well as the best arguments in favor. So if you want to read Stanley Kurtz, Antonin Scalia, Maggie Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Bill Bennett or Charles Krauthammer, then this anthology has them all on great form. But this is also the best collection of pro-marriage articles I could find, from Jonathan Rauch to Evan Wolfson, Doug Ireland and E.J. Graff. There’s also a wealth of factual material: accounts of same-sex marriages in sixteenth century Italy, native American America, Byzantine Europe, and seventeenth century China. The book includes all the relevant, religious arguments and passages from Leviticus, St Paul and other Biblical sources, as well as theological commentary (from Jean Elshtain to John Shelby Spong and Rabbi Yoel Kahn); all the pertinent legal decisions from the Hawaii case through Lawrence vs Texas and the Massachusetts Goodridge decision (edited so you don’t have to slog through the entire opinions to read the critical passages); a whole chapter on the polygamy question; another chapter collecting all the data on child-rearing; conservative voices in favor of equality, including Richard Posner, Jonathan Rauch, the Economist, and David Brooks; and even left-wing voices against. Then there are a few entries that defy categorization – from Camille Paglia to Hannah Arendt, Sonny Bono, Plato and Ann Landers. Both George W. Bush and John Kerry are included. So, of course, are a few of my own essays, from my 1989 New Republic piece that helped kick off this debate to my most recent Time magazine column, “The ‘M-Word.'” I’ve also written an introduction and new preface. It is, I think, the best and most comprehensive resource on the whole topic, from every imaginable angle, in a cheap paperback, perfect for teachers, students, and anyone who simply wants to think this subject through. Have I sold you on it yet? You can buy it here at Amazon. Please do.

“No matter which side one supports on this issue, this anthology will enable both an intellectual support of one’s own beliefs and a better, fuller understanding of the contrary position.” – Amazon.com.

“Succeeds in framing the major religious, legal, moral and personal issues … and in showing why the debate cuts to the core of Americans’ beliefs about themselves.” – Philadelphia Inquirer.

“For smaller collections that may need only one title on the subject, Sullivan’s work is by far the better choice, given the depth and breadth of its coverage.” – Library Journal.

MEDIA HO UPDATE: Every day this week, I’ll be on TV or radio somewhere, as well as speaking at three live events. The live events are tonight at the Barnes and Noble in Chelsea, New York City, at 7 pm, Wednesday at 7 pm at the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square, courtesy of Wordsworth Books, and Friday at 6.30 pm at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The final event will be a debate between me and others, including Robert Bork and Gary Bauer (C-SPAN will broadcast). As for media, I’ll be on the radio this morning on WNYC in New York for the Brian Lehrer show at 10.30 am, and on TV on the Anderson Cooper CNN show tomorrow evening, as well as Headline News and MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country”. Later this week, I’ll be on Bill Moyers’ PBS show. All these media gigs can and probably will change, if experience is any guide, but this is my best guess as of now. If you’re in the media and want an interview, my publicist is Fernando Montero at Random House, 212 572 2420. My apologies for the light blogging this week, but book tours suck all the energy and time from a human being, and I’m leery of trying to write completely exhausted. I tend to get my Jacksons and Jeffersons, let alone my Zarqawis and Zawahiris, muddled up. But I will try and check in as much as I can.

INSIDE DISH: The Inside Dish will return next weekend, when I catch my breath.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “So Kerry could finish the job in Iraq better than Bush by giving the job to John McCain, assuming, of course, that he would relinquish his job as Commander-in-Chief. But what is there to insure that John McCain’s counsel would be heeded even after their supposed victory? McCain is to Cheney as Kerry is to … sorry, not Bush. It is more likely, I think, that the two would soon be at odds, which is not by definition a bad thing, but may not be what you had in mind. On the other hand, I can’t imagine a better recipe than a Kerry-McCain ticket for increasing Ralph Nader’s percentage.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

“[I]t is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about [the President’s] acts… To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.” – Teddy Roosevelt, Kansas City Star, May 7, 1918.

FAKED: I mentioned a while back that the photos of alleged abuse by British soldiers published by the fanatically anti-American Daily Mirror were deemed fakes. Now we know they were. For true schadenfreude, check out the Mirror’s deadly rival, the Sun. The editor, Piers Morgan, refused even yesterday to resign or acknowledge that he had published a falsehood. He had to be walked out of his office by security, after telling a television interviewer: “All I want to say is we published the truth. We have revealed a can of worms. If the government chooses to ignore that, it is entirely a matter for them.” So far in the Iraq war battle, two major anti-war media outlets, the BBC and the Mirror, have been rocked. Tony Blair is still in office.

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “Barring a miracle, the family as it has been known for more than five millennia will crumble, presaging the fall of Western civilization itself. This is a time for concerted prayer, divine wisdom and greater courage than we have ever been called upon to exercise. For more than 40 years, the homosexual activist movement has sought to implement a master plan that has had as its centerpiece the utter destruction of the family. The institution of marriage, along with an often weakened and impotent Church, is all that stands in the way of its achievement of every coveted aspiration. Those goals include universal acceptance of the gay lifestyle, discrediting of Scriptures that condemn homosexuality, muzzling of the clergy and Christian media, granting of special privileges and rights in the law, overturning laws prohibiting pedophilia, indoctrinating children and future generations through public education, and securing all the legal benefits of marriage for any two or more people who claim to have homosexual tendencies.” – James Dobson, in his latest newsletter. This is simply unhinged.

CORRECTION: Zarqawi is not al Qaeda’s number two. I should not blog when I’m traveling. My bad. I was thinking of Zawahiri. I also meant Jacksonian, not Jeffersonian. I should also not blog when exhausted in a hotel lobby at 11 pm.

“It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out where the strong man stumbled, or where a doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, and who comes up short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause. The man who at best knows the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, fails while daring greatly, so that his place will never be with those cold timid souls who never knew victory or defeat.” – Teddy Roosevelt.

IT WAS ZARQAWI: Yes, it probably was Osama’s number two. As dumb as he is evil. I don’t think he understands the Jeffersonian tendency in American life and culture. It’s not like Europe or anywhere else. And what Zarqawi has achieved is the enragement of the American psyche. He will come to regret it. As his best buddy already has.

CORRECTING GALLAGHER: Maggie Gallagher’s latest argument about same-sex marriage is not much more than a splutter. But it does have an error. As part of her attempt to portray equal marriage rights for gays as some kind of path toward an un-American Gomorrah, she says the following: “Europe, which gave us the idea of same-sex marriage, is a dying society, with birthrates 50 percent below replacement.” But the first movement for marriage equality was in America in the 1970s. And the first major breakthrough was in America, in Hawaii. And the intellectual arguments in favor were forged in America, not in Europe. And that is how it should be. It is the American constitution that guarantees not some pragmatic device to help gay couples, but the bedrock principle of civil equality and civil rights. This is a quintessentially American reform, which is why it is so appropriate that Massachusetts, the home of the Pilgrims, should be the pioneer. And so fitting that the day for the breakthrough will be the fiftieth anniversary of Brown vs Board of Education.

ON THE ROAD: I’m in Minnesota, kicking off a week of touring and speaking, featuring my new book, the updated anthology, “Same Sex Marriage, Pro and Con: A Reader.” I’ll soon be posting more details. Meanwhile, there are three new pieces posted opposite: fisking Bob Novak, touting Kerry-McCain, and analyzing Bush’s srengths and weaknesses. Tomorrow night, I’ll be on Aaron Brown’s Newsnight. On Monday evening, I’ll be speaking at 7 pm at the Barnes and Noble in Chelsea. More to come.

They’re already burying the Nick Berg story to follow the prison abuse issue. Glenn Reynolds has some data to show how out-of-touch big media is.

“It was interesting to hear about the jump in hits on blogger web-sites. Let me suggest that it is due not so much to the Nick Berg video, but to the combination, or sequence, of the Abu Ghraib photos AND the Nick Berg video. For me, the Abu Ghraib photos acted as slate clearer. Like you, after I first saw those photos I fell into a deep funk where I started to question everything that had made me a staunch supporter of the war. While in this funk I realized that much of my rationale for going to war was underpinned by an unformed, yet felt assumption that it would go well. Those photos yanked that all away. So then what happened? Into this void gets poured the images of an innocent civilian being savagely beheaded. Now unencumbered by unspoken assumptions that this would be easy, I see the true nature of what we are up against, and am more committed to winning this thing than ever before. I wonder if many in the blogosphere are experiencing the same phenomenon.” The guy’s right; and count me among those in this emotional whiplash. I feel more committed this week to getting this liberation right than I have for months. That doesn’t mean I think we shouldn’t prosecute the perpetrators of the Abu Ghraib abuses as forcefully as we can. It merely means I feel emboldened to carry on, thanks to the reminder of Zarqawi.

Reasons to be more cheerful.

THE RIGHT-WING UNHINGED: Tim Noah collects a few of the more nutty far right attempts to explain away, ignore or just duck the issue of Abu Ghraib. No surprise that the religious right is well represented. But none goes as low as National Review’s John Derbyshire.

In the blogosphere, we are sometimes in tune with national moods. My gut tells me that the Nick Berg video has had much more psychic impact in this country than the Abu Ghraib horrors. I even notice some small evidence for this. Every political blog site has just seen an exponential jump in traffic – far more than anything that occurred during the Abu Ghraib unfolding. My traffic went through the roof yesterday, and, according to Alexa, so did everyone else’s. People who have tuned the war out suddenly tuned the war in. They get it. Will the mainstream media?

“My mental state these past few days: 1. The Abu Ghraib “scandal”: Good. Kick one for me. But bad discipline in the military (taking the pictures, I mean). Let’s have a couple of courts martial for appearance’s sake. Maximum sentence: 30 days CB.” – John Derbyshire, rejoicing in the brutalizing of Iraqi prisoners. “Kick one for me?” Is that a sentiment National Review endorses? I’ve seen conservative attempts to belittle the abuses at Abu Ghraib, but this is the first time I’ve read anyone actually endorsing them. For Derbyshire, the only problem with abusing, torturing and humiliating prisoners is that it might get out. He’s depraved.