Andrew Sullivan | The Daily Dish: The Left Versus Gays: "The outing crusade gains momentum. Look: I loathe the closet. I despise the hypocrisy in the Republican party. But a witch-hunt is a witch-hunt. If the gay left thinks it will advance gay dignity by using tactics that depend on homophobia to work, that violate privacy, that demonizes gay people, then all I can say is: they are wrong. They will regret it. It will come back to haunt them. And they should cut it out. The fact that their motives might be good is no excuse. Everybody on a witchhunt believes their motives are good. But the toxins such a witchhunt exposes, the cruelty it requires, and the fanaticism of its adherents are always dangerous to civilized discourse. What you're seeing right now is an alliance of the intolerant: the intolerant on the gay left and the intolerant on the religious right. The victims are gay people - flawed, fallible, even pathetic gay people. But they are still people. And they deserve better."
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Weather Report: Sun Rises in West, Chance of Flying Pigs
... in other news, Seneca recommends something Sullivan wrote.
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5 comments:
"the intolerant on the religious right"
I hear this phrase a lot. I don't believe in it, any more than I believe in Santa Claus. I think it's a null pointer, a referant without underlying object.
What, intolerant people on the religious right? You do'nt believe they exist?
Are you feeling okay?
I certainlyo don't believe that all people on the religious right are intolerant, but I can promise you --- being someone who is on the right usually but who isn't in the majority or conventional religion --- they do exist.
Well, what the left so often do as a rhetorical tactic is write people off as "the extreme right". This happened to me the other day, and I had to tell the guy that I considered myself a centrist, that conservatism best represents the center, and that the extremes are not where he thinks they are (as we walked into a leftist meeting full of Israel and America hatred).
Having said that, I can't identify any firm ground where one can show that a religious person "intolerant" or opposed to homosexuality (judging the sin, if not the sinner) is any more intolerant (or whatever negative adjective makes sense) than the person who begrudges him for being a religious person who believes what his book says about homosexuality.
I dont believe in the "right", the "religious right" or the "intolerant people on the religious right". These are all cartoon abstractions of reality designed to demonize and thereby marginalize those who disagree with us. Just like "left".
MHA,
You're right about characterizations concerning those on the right. OTOH, leftists really do have horns.
Pointy tails, too.
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