So I often see progressives cite Andrew Sullivan as a level-headed and intelligent conservative. A voice of reason and concerned, rational former Republican.
I can see where they can easily fall into this trap, since he does have the sense to call Palin what she is, and in the later years of the Bush administration, he woke up to the horror of what he had formerly supported so vociferously.
But in reality, Sullivan is a stupid jackass.
I haven't regularly read the Daily Dish for quite some time, I forget at this point exactly which entry was the last straw for me, but it was probably something to do with his continuing, childish clinging to the pant-leg of the Catholic church.
This morning I decided to check in, with the hope that maybe he would have something interesting to say about Palin. I found that with this entry, doing a decent job of pointing out what a disaster Palin would be regarding Israeli/Palestine relations (since she is just a cipher basically saying "Whatever Israel wants, Israel gets.") Whatever your personal stance on the issue, let's agree that Palin's lack of comprehension, understanding or rational thought is bad for all parties.
But then just below that entry, I come across this sentence in a short entry on Roe v. Wade:
I guess I'm one of only a handful of people who would be thrilled to see both Roe overturned and marriage equallty exist in every state that wants it.
There's that Catholic idiocy rearing its head again. Let's break down this sentence rationally, shall we?
Sullivan is smart enough to know that making LGBT civil rights a state issue doesn't work. He knows what the track record has been on that. He knows the history of the civil rights struggle, and that the federal government had to step in, or we'd probably still have separate drinking fountains for "coloreds" in Alabama today.
But his childish devotion to his misogynistic religion forces him to take a "let the states decide" stance on abortion (aka women's rights), as a half-measure. This stance on women's rights then forces him to carry it over into his own rights, so you have the state by state stance on LGBT civil rights.
Religion poisons everything.
It's grating enough when a straight man tries to force his misogynistic, superstition-based, anti-choice views onto women. I think it's doubly bad when a gay man stoops to it, as there's not even the possibility that he would be involved in an abortion. As a straight man, even in a case where I was the father, I do not think it is my decision, at all. I would offer my support in whatever the woman decided, and help her decide only if she wanted my input. I can't imagine where a gay man thinks he gets to dictate that his own superstition can dictate the options available to women in situations he has nothing whatsoever to do with.
I think it's a bit like trying to be involved in city planning for Brussels when you live in Las Vegas. It's another level of ridiculousness on top of the simple fact that it's attempting to take away womens' rights to their own bodies.
So yes, when people cite Sullivan as if he's some clear-thinking, rational conservative it makes me lose my cool a bit. Because of shit like this. He is not clear-thinking and rational, he's a religious, deluded kook just like the rest of the conservative movement. The only difference is he can see a little of his own group's insanity, but he's willfully blind to a lot of it.
He seems to have a very solid track record of being willfully blind until after the damage has already been done. He seems to have little interest in correcting that key flaw, he just apologizes for whatever the latest giant blunder was without addressing his core problem; which is that his thinking is based on irrational beliefs and not on reasoned consideration of the facts.