Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2655

The Unique Quality Of "Lifelong Heterosexual Monogamy" Ctd

A reader writes:

I disagree with probably 90% of what you post nowadays. I think you have gone unhinged on Palin and I think you give Obama way too much slack. Also, I come from a conservative Christian background, and for most of life opposing gay marriage has just been kind of something I believe without really knowing why; it just was. 

While my views have been shifting over the past few years, your post crystallized things for me in a way no New York Times essay ever could. Basically, I...

De-Personalizing Weddings, Ctd

A reader writes:

I'd love to be rid of the "It's My Day!" foot-stomping as well, but I don't think you need to go as far as de-personalizing the wedding. I think we can distinguish between personalizing a wedding and going overboard with extravagant flourishes as some kind of symbolism about how glamorous The Event is supposed to be.

I see the wedding day as the rare time when nearly all of the people you care about (and who care about you) are assembled in the same place and get the chance...

Leaving Afghanistan In 2011?

The image above from Spencer Ackerman is the periphery of the massive new Bagram base for the new American empire in Southeast Asia. For some reason I don't believe the July 2011 deadline:

Step off a C-17 cargo plane, as I did very early Friday morning, and you see a flight line packed with planes. When I was last here two years ago, helicopters crowded the runways and fixed-wing aircraft were –- well, if not rare, still a notable sight. Today you've got C-17s, Predators, F-16s, F-15s, MC-12...

Christianist Watch

"I think that it would be advisable [to prohibit gays from being foster parents:]. I really do not think that we should have homosexuals guiding our children. I think that it's a lifestyle that I don't agree with. I realize a lot of people do. It's my personal faith, religious faith, that I don't believe that the people who do this should be raising our children. It's not a natural thing. You need a mother and a father. You need a man and a woman. That's what God intended," - Florida attorney ...

Mental Health Break

The coolest timelapse of ants in a scanner you'll see this week:

ANTS in my scanner > a five years time-lapse! from françois vautier on Vimeo.

Vimeo - Multimedia - Development Frameworks - Flash - Business

The Conservative-Liberal Delusion?

A reader writes:

You've defined conservatism many times over the
years as a "disposition." The clip that you featured yesterday of , defending his strong pro position on same-sex
marriage, seems – to my mind – to be about as good an example of the
true conservative disposition as one could hope for: principled
calm, smart, broad-minded, pragmatic, courteous, inclusive and
reality-based.

But the same could be said for David Boies, Olson's liberal co-counsel...

The Unique Quality Of "Lifelong Heterosexual Monogamy" Ctd

A reader writes:

I found this piece of yours very moving, and I want to add to
the conversation on gay marriage my perspective as a child raised by a
gay couple (a "homogenate" as I call us, for short) in the U.S. in the
1980s.

If I had been born in the '90s or the '00s in the right state instead of the '80s, perhaps my biological mother and her lover, Mollie, could have had a civil union. That would have made their relationship simpler from a legal standpoint, for sure. But still, what...

The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin XCIII: Gone Fishin', Ctd

A reader writes:

As a longtime reader and 30+ year Alaska resident who went to Chugiak High School (just half an hour down the road from Wasilla) during the early '80s, I always enjoy reading your series "The Odd Lies of Sarah Palin" to see what kinds of crazy shit she is trying to get away with.  However, your most recent post regarding halibut fishing is potentially inaccurate.  Under National Marine Fisheries Service regulations, there is a subsistence program for rural Alaska residents...

Who Let The Dogs Out? Ctd

A reader writes:

Just an observation from your post yesterday, "Who Let the Dogs Out?" A key passage comes near the end, when you write of neoconservatism's "deeply hidden contempt" for the democratic West.

This really is where the intellectual connection to Leo Strauss is worth noting. The entire Straussian project is premised on a thoroughgoing critique of modernity -- see especially Strauss's essay, "The Three Waves of Modernity." Modernity starts with Machiavelli and Hobbes and Locke...

The Unique Quality Of "Lifelong Heterosexual Monogamy" Ctd

Dan Savage is less delicate than my response to Ross:

[U:]nless Douthat is prepared to call for laws that would compel straightpeople to live up to the same "sexual ideal" of marriage that somehowjustify discrimination against same-sex couples—and calls for laws thatwould punish straight people who fail to live up to thatideal (no more marriage licenses for you, Mr. Limbaugh)—then theDouthat's case for discrimination is just another serving of bullshit patties(albeit a fresher one) and...