Sullivan vs. Ponnuru
I read Andrew Sullivan's column in this week's Time magazine and came away impressively unimpressed. Sullivan has been beating the gay marriage drum with vigor for the past couple of years and it's started to affect his cognitive abilities.
Sullivan claims that "The 'Christian' vote has become shorthand in journalism for the Republican base." I don't have access to Nexis, Sullivan does, but I'd challenge him to find me just five examples where a major, mainstream news organization has associated "Christian" -- not "conservative Christians," not "fundamentalist Christians," not "evangelical Christians," or "right-wing Christians" -- with the GOP base. I read a ton of media reports and I can't recall a time when plain, old garden-variety "Christian" was used as shorthand for "Republican."
Sullivan's column also suggests that since we cannot know God's position on everything, we should forbid nothing.
And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God's real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple? Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.
On some of these issues, I don't know what God's position is (conraception), on others -- well, let's just say I've read Romans 1.
Sullivan makes the case for calling conservative Christians "Christianists" -- like Islamists, but with out all of the violence and head-chopping-off behavior. Except for the fact that Sullivan would have to be a fool to think that the vast majority of the American public, should his labeling take hold, would make exactly that connection.
Anyway, I titled this post Sullivan vs. Ponnuru, and I encourage you to check out Ramesh's posts on this issue. #1 #2 #3 #4
Several years ago, Sullivan called me a "superb blogger" when I was one of the first to take on the New York Times' Paul Krugman on a regular basis. I doubt that Sullivan would make the same statement today, but then I haven't changed.
0 comments on “Sullivan vs. Ponnuru”
Tags
I do not know God's position is on throwing a ****bomb at Michael Moore.
Then again, he smells like ****, so he may like it.
[Edited. Hoystory is a PG site when it comes to cussing.]
Matthew, After reading Andrew's piece I have to say that I agree with him or at least what I believe him to be saying. That is, I don't think we should pass laws where the motivation is some sense of carrying out God's wishes here on earth. Instead, laws should be passed in order to promote a smoothly functioning society where everyone has equal protection under the law, particularly those who otherwise would be defenseless.
So is the fact that we make theft illegal because it is one of the Ten Commandments or because if we didn't have such a law, chaos would surround us? The same applies to laws against murder. However, we have evolved so that sins like adultery are no longer illegal.
The problem with enacting laws whose sole animating purpose is the desire to carry out God's wishes on earth is that ultimately corrupt, imperfect and potentially evil people decide what God's wishes are. We all know where that takes us.
Sullivan's argument is really all about a single-issue -- gay marriage. No one's suggesting that a law be passed that requires everyone to tithe 10 percent to some church, or a requirement that every courthouse have the 10 Commandments posted.
IIf it's part of your religious belief that we should be good stewards of the Earth and you translate that into a responsibility to support the Kyoto protocol, Sullivan doesn't care. He doesn't care if you're religiously-spurred to be politically active that way.
It's all about gay marriage. Well, gay marriage and free speech. Because if you oppose gay marriage -- on religious, or any other grounds for that matter -- Sullivan wants you silenced and marginalized.
If Sullivan's concern really is that the religious right wants to "enact laws whose sole animating purpose is the desire to carry out God's wishes on earth," then he's got absolutely nothing to worry about. No one is suggesting the death penalty for being a homosexual.
With the exception of abortion (and I'd suggest you check out Ramesh Ponnuru's "Party of Death" which is a non-religious argument against abortion, euthanasia, etc), the "religious right" is merely trying to maintain the status quo. Sullivan is the one pressing for new laws that would put government muscle behind normalizing his behavior.
By the way, many states still have laws against adultery on the books and adultery is still valid claim in divorce proceedings and people have been sued civilly in recent years for having affairs with a married person and won.
Well, as the piece was written, he was not specifically addressing gay marriage to the exclusion of other issues. I agreed with the general arguments in his piece.
As for gay marriage, I don't believe it is a right, either fundamentally or in a civil rights sense. Neither is heterosexual marriage for that matter. Again, as a governed people, we have determined that heterosexual marriage benefits society and therefore it is encouraged through our laws, which may be why there still are anti-adultery laws on the books in some places. It is up to gay marriage advocates to make cogent and persuasive arguments as to how society would benefit from allowing gay marriage. There should be no shortcuts through the courts. I believe this issue should be left to the states and their elected officials. But that also means I am against any constitutional amendment forbidding gay marriage.
Personally. when I hear the arguments against gay marriage I hear a very religious content to those arguments. Now people are entitled to argue a point using whatever verbal ammunition they desire, but using the construct that laws should serve to facilitate a smoothly functioning society and not do God's work here on earth, I have to reject the religious-based arguments against gay marriage.
While one might not know it from this exchange I am actually quite conservative (actually libertarian). However, if the last 25 years have taught us anything it is that theocracies are really bad news. And while we don't have a theocracy in this country, and almost certainly never will, there are subsets of the US population that think in a theocratic manner. That was the message I took away from Andrew's piece.
Matthew nailed it. Sullivan is an intelligent guy and a gifted writer, but he's become tiresome. I deleted him from my bookmarks years ago.
The only way America is becoming a theocracy is if the jihadis win, so why worry about the "religious right?" I don't read much about "beheading Baptists" or "crusading Catholics." Somehow, I don't think looking at a creche, or a menorah, or the ten commandments is going to hurt anyone.