Ok, so the whole Blogosphere just exploded over Andrew Sullivan’s reputed ditching of George W Bush, Bloggers are taking sides and there’s a comment war being fought. I’m going to weigh in on this because everyone else is doing so and I want to look cool.
Andrew Sullivan posted an email to his letters page about his having given up on Bush ages ago. I remember reading the email that now seems to be the centre of this whole debacle.
I don’t agree with his suggestion that even though the war on terrorism is the most important matter for this generation to be concerned with, somehow Bush’s stance on a constitutional amendment that will never be passed is sufficiently important to justify passing responsibility for said matter to a less competent candidate.
He’s entirely entitled to his opinion even if mine differs from his.
I’d like to have his opinion articulated as clearly for his blog readers as it is for the readers of whatever gay journal he spoke in regarding his repudiation of Bush.
For obvious reasons he considers the Gay Marriage issue a big one, ordinarily I would agree. However you’d have to place the fulcrum miles away to balance it with the War on Terror in my mind, especially when it’s evident that a constitutional amendment is impossible under the current congress.
Given that failure in one of those policies will automatically invalidate the other I can’t for the life of me see how it’s worth trying to balance them. The war on terror is the most fundamentally important challenge to our civilization, Sullivan says so and I’d back the candidate who can prosecute it best. Both candidates are against Gay Marriage, only one would try to pass the amendment and as it’s already clear that the amendment couldn’t pass if it wanted to, there is no practical difference between the two.
Sullivan’s not going to get a candidate who follows his line on Gay Marriage till Schwarzeneggar is on the ticket.
Put simply, for the 2004 US Presidential Election, Gay Marriage is a non-issue. There will be no change on the issue whichever candidate you choose.
When you also consider the gargantuan importance of the war on terrorism, Sullivan’s position, from an emotionless, objective viewpoint is utter bollucks. As much as it hurts me to say that, being pro-gay marriage myself, I can’t see it any other way.
Andrew Sullivan is entirely justified in having his heart entangled with his head on this issue, few of us can even begin to understand what this must be like - to have to accept that the denial of one of your fundamental rights is entirely insignificant in the current political climate. I sincerely doubt he will ever be able to accept it, however unlike many I don’t think that’s a weakness in any way shape or form - he stays on my blogroll and in my bookmarks and in my prayers.
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at June 19, 2004 05:10 AM | TrackBack