# Did You Read Andrew Sullivan Today? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 13, 2020, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584 "2020-06-13T03:12:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/1 "2020-06-13T03:12:29Z")
This week’s essay is entitled [Is There Still Room for Debate?](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/andrew-sullivan-is-there-still-room-for-debate.html) It is not overlong and well worth your time. I am always gobsmacked by the easy, smooth clarity of his writing and thought. In this column he questions the more extreme orthodoxy of the current political moment, and all political orthodoxies. I think he is on to something. Human affairs seem to swing from one extreme to another reach the truth of balance only after a lot of extremism. Chance are we are just as wrong about a lot of things as our grandparents were. But in the moment our passions seem so obviously correct. I suppose it is a sort of optical illusion. We are right, moral, scientific but those long-ago people were mistaken, twisted, and blind. In any case, I recommend it to you. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/2 "2020-06-13T03:21:56Z")
I always thought he was a VERY sharp writer. I know he catches a lot of flak from the left. Maybe that’s ok. Someone has to catch it. I never thought of him as a partisan or ideologue. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/3 "2020-06-13T03:59:37Z")
I was impressed when he first came to my attention long, long ago. He was in favor of Gay people getting married. For this he was attacked by … Gay people. (Their argument being marriage, kids a fog and a house in the suburbs would end Gay Culture.) I was, and still am, impressed by his cutting through the fluff to get to the heart of the matter. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/4 "2020-06-13T04:20:32Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > I was impressed when he first came to my attention long, long ago. He was in favor of Gay people getting married. For this he was attacked by … Gay people. (Their argument being marriage, kids a fog and a house in the suburbs would end Gay Culture.) I was, and still am, impressed by his cutting through the fluff to get to the heart of the matter. Andrew Sullivan likes to lionize himself as some sort of modern originator of the notion of gay marriage. He did in fact advocate early for gay marriage, and he did in fact take some heat, but it wasn’t because of his proposal, it was because he wrote, and I quote, that marriage would save gay people from “a life of meaningless promiscuity followed by eternal damnation.” Now why on earth would that offend people? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/5 "2020-06-13T04:36:31Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Now why on earth would that offend people In the modern epoch, breakfast offends some people. Larry Krammer was the main one who caught flak for his writings on this subject, especially his novel about Gay life in the Old Days. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/6 "2020-06-13T13:47:59Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > I was impressed when he first came to my attention long, long ago. He was in favor of Gay people getting married. For this he was attacked by … Gay people. (Their argument being marriage, kids a fog and a house in the suburbs would end Gay Culture.) I was, and still am, impressed by his cutting through the fluff to get to the heart of the matter. I have a love/hate relationship with him, a few weeks ago he was praising Phyllis Schlafly! ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/7 "2020-06-13T14:55:28Z")
He writes, _(NYT column) contained the following sentence, describing research into racial inequality: “Economics journals are still filled with papers that emphasize differences in education, upbringing or even IQ rather than discrimination or structural barriers.” But why are these avenues of research mutually exclusive? Why can’t the issue of racial inequality be complicated — involving many social, economic, and cultural factors that operate alongside the resilience of discrimination? And wouldn’t it help if we focused on those specific issues rather than seeing every challenge that African-Americans face as an insuperable struggle against the hatred of whites?_ Which is his subtle way of attempting to direct a dialog about racism away from the topic of racism. It is eloquent, candy-coated deflection, analogous to “_You_ say _the engine is running badly because the injectors are clogged, but I believe that the engine is a complex device, and the injectors are just one small component out of many, which should be viewed with the proper perspective against the greater whole_.” So, basically, right here he is suggesting that we stop talking about racism, but doing it in a sly manner that allows him to say that he never said that. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/8 "2020-06-13T22:22:51Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > He writes, > _(NYT column) contained the following sentence, describing research into racial inequality: “Economics journals are still filled with papers that emphasize differences in education, upbringing or even IQ rather than discrimination or structural barriers.” But why are these avenues of research mutually exclusive? Why can’t the issue of racial inequality be complicated — involving many social, economic, and cultural factors that operate alongside the resilience of discrimination? And wouldn’t it help if we focused on those specific issues rather than seeing every challenge that African-Americans face as an insuperable struggle against the hatred of whites?_ > > Which is his subtle way of attempting to direct a dialog about racism away from the topic of racism. It is eloquent, candy-coated deflection, analogous to “_You_ say _the engine is running badly because the injectors are clogged, but I believe that the engine is a complex device, and the injectors are just one small component out of many, which should be viewed with the proper perspective against the greater whole_.” > > So, basically, right here he is suggesting that we stop talking about racism, but doing it in a sly manner that allows him to say that he never said that. It’s also a call back to his appreciation for and defense of “The Bell Curve”. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/9 "2020-06-13T22:35:10Z")
It was an ok article, and he made some good points about the left demanding ideological purity as well as follow through action to embrace the ideological purity. The idea of walking away from family and friends due to ideological disagreement is getting more and more common from what I’ve seen. But I don’t think you can really address whats happening without discussing Trump. Anytime minorities grow in either power or number, there is a pushback from people trying to defend a social order that defends their status and privilege. Trump is an example of one such pushback (another would be the creation of the KKK after the civil war) against having a black president for 8 years. Yes minorities are doing better and thats great. But sadly when minorities do better, it causes pushback by those who don’t want them to do better. Trumps election was to a large degree an effort to push back. MAGA was a call to return to the days of America being a white christian patriarchy with low immigration. But you also have to add in the desperation due to the virus. Lots of people didn’t have $400 to pay a bill before the virus hit. now we’re at depression levels of unemployment and its the second ‘once in a lifetime’ economic collapse for a lot of people in Generation Y and Z within the last 15 years. $500 billion in loans were given to corporations and details of which ones got which loans aren’t being publicized. Also you have the governments slow march towards fascism and there is a lot of stuff people are upset about and pushing back against. I don’t think Sullivan understands the mood or the movement right now. He doesn’t seem to understand the role Trumpism plays in this or the coronavirus. Both of which are pretty important to the mood right now. This is basically a culmination of resistance to fascism, racism, economic inequality and the virus all hitting at once. Sullivan doesn’t really seem to understand what built to this movement, just the fact that some people are so angry that they are demanding other people do something proactive, which he feels is totalitarian. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/10 "2020-06-13T23:41:19Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > It was an ok article, and he made some good points about the left demanding ideological purity as well as follow through action to embrace the ideological purity. The idea of walking away from family and friends due to ideological disagreement is getting more and more common from what I’ve seen. Thing is, the Right has a longstanding habit of disowning, blackmailing, terrorizing or outright torturing or killing family and (alleged) friends whom they have an “ideological disagreement”. Unless the left starts doing things like having children they consider too right wing hauled off and tortured in conversion camps the way the right wing does to homosexual children, somebody bashing the left for mistreating family members out of politics is at best using a _huge_ double standard. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/11 "2020-06-14T00:04:23Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Andrew Sullivan likes to lionize himself as some sort of modern originator of the notion of gay marriage. He did in fact advocate early for gay marriage, and he did in fact take some heat, but it wasn’t because of his proposal, it was because he wrote, and I quote, that marriage would save gay people from “a life of meaningless promiscuity followed by eternal damnation.” > > Now why on earth would that offend people? Your fragment badly mischaracterizes the meaning of that passage from Love Undetectable: > [@](#): > > “If you teach people that something as deep inside them as their very personality is either a source of unimaginable shame or unmentionable sin, and if you tell them that their only ethical direction is either the suppression of that self in a life of suffering or a life of meaningless promiscuity followed by eternal damnation, then it is perhaps not surprising that their moral and sexual behavior becomes wildly dichotic; that it veers from compulsive activity to shame and withdrawal; or that it becomes anesthetized by drugs or alcohol or fatally distorted by the false, crude ideology of easy prophets." ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/12 "2020-06-14T03:02:42Z")
Well, he deserves to have his stuff taken out of context. I hope I can learn from his writing style, because it is horrific, and I see that I sometimes do that same kind of effete shit that makes stuff painful to read. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/13 "2020-06-14T03:23:01Z")
His premise is correct. The radical left are a danger to classical liberalism. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/14 "2020-06-14T03:43:17Z")
Classical liberalism is a danger unto itself and tends to be mocked mercilessly by the left. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/15 "2020-06-14T05:10:28Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > His premise is correct. The radical left are a danger to classical liberalism. The leftists I know would take that statement as a compliment, and use “liberal” as a curse word. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/16 "2020-06-14T05:40:19Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Classical liberalism is a danger unto itself and tends to be mocked mercilessly by the left. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The leftists I know would take that statement as a compliment, and use “liberal” as a curse word. Strong support for the concept of individual rights is a core component of classical liberalism. Why would that be mocked? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/17 "2020-06-14T06:37:43Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Strong support for the concept of individual rights is a core component of classical liberalism. Why would that be mocked? Because they are deluded at best, and the \*result \*of their beliefs is the opposite of freedom or rights. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/18 "2020-06-14T08:47:10Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > He writes, > _(NYT column) contained the following sentence, describing research into racial inequality: “Economics journals are still filled with papers that emphasize differences in education, upbringing or even IQ rather than discrimination or structural barriers.” But why are these avenues of research mutually exclusive? Why can’t the issue of racial inequality be complicated — involving many social, economic, and cultural factors that operate alongside the resilience of discrimination? And wouldn’t it help if we focused on those specific issues rather than seeing every challenge that African-Americans face as an insuperable struggle against the hatred of whites?_ > > Which is his subtle way of attempting to direct a dialog about racism away from the topic of racism. It is eloquent, candy-coated deflection, analogous to “_You_ say _the engine is running badly because the injectors are clogged, but I believe that the engine is a complex device, and the injectors are just one small component out of many, which should be viewed with the proper perspective against the greater whole_.” > > So, basically, right here he is suggesting that we stop talking about racism, but doing it in a sly manner that allows him to say that he never said that. Bad take. Racial inequality _is_ a complex topic and solving it _does_ require us to consider lots of different things at the same time. Your comparison to a car engine, where one malfunction really _can_ cause the whole system to shut down, is fatuous. In the real world, social breakdowns have lots of different causes. He’s _not_ suggesting we “stop talking about racism”. That’s pure projection on your part. He’s saying we should broaden our analysis to consider other factors _as well as racism_. This is a perfectly sensible suggestion which reflects the complexity of the problem. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/19 "2020-06-14T09:21:46Z")
> [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > Your fragment badly mischaracterizes the meaning of that passage from Love Undetectable: That still reads to me like he thinks that there are forms of sex between consenting adults that are somehow wrong. It just isn’t their fault. And the implication is that, if we let them marry instead, it’ll stop them from doing these bad things. I think that fits his summary quite well. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584/20 "2020-06-14T14:48:06Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That still reads to me like he thinks that there are forms of sex between consenting adults that are somehow wrong. It just isn’t their fault. And the implication is that, if we let them marry instead, it’ll stop them from doing these bad things. > > I think that fits his summary quite well. This is fair; yes he is saying some sex is wrong and that marriage would help the situation. But the earlier characterization – _that Sullivan said_ “that marriage would save gay people from ‘a life of meaningless promiscuity followed by eternal damnation’” – removes the context and distorts the meaning. He did not say unmarried gay people are headed for eternal damnation. He said that IF gay people are taught their very personality is sinful, and IF you tell them that they must be forever celibate or else be eternally damned, THEN their response may be reckless/compulsive sex alternating with shame and withdrawal, etc. _The Village Voice_ did the same thing with the quote, which Sullivan discusses here: > [@](#): > > Another sentence was routinely hauled out to condemn me for hypocrisy and pops up from time to time. Here is [Richard Goldstein’s phrase](http://www.villagevoice.com/2001-06-19/news/the-real-andrew-sullivan-scandal/) of accusation: > > > [@](#): > > > > [Sullivan] considers gay marriage the only healthy alternative to “a life of meaningless promiscuity followed by eternal damnation.” > > Again, go check the original context. It’s from the same book. It comes from a section where I am impugning the idea of “hate the sin, love the sinner” and the failure of the churches to offer moral direction of any kind to gay men, leaving us for millennia vulnerable to, yes, sexual pathologies born out of desperation or the need for relief from the contradictions of our lives… [More.](http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/11/13/libidinal-pathology/) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-read-andrew-sullivan-today/855584.md?page=2)