{"id":208,"date":"2003-04-27T16:03:21","date_gmt":"2003-04-27T23:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stefangeens.com\/?p=208"},"modified":"2003-04-27T16:03:21","modified_gmt":"2003-04-27T23:03:21","slug":"andrew-sullivan-label-whore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/2003\/04\/andrew-sullivan-label-whore\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Sullivan, label whore"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog has at times been quite obsessed with the musings of Andrew Sullivan<\/a>, mainly because if there is one thing which exasperates me it is seemingly smart, articulate people spouting absolute nonsense. Naomi Klein is his left-wing equivalent<\/a>.<\/span>This was the case<\/a> with his defense of the ideas of Pim Fortuyn, another person to which this criticism applies. It was also the case with his early strong push for war with Iraq. But a person can only take so much, and I stopped reading his blog as it evolved into a shrill one-note take on the world. Being predictable is not a good thing for a blog to be. Why bother reading itEspecially if you do not allow comments, which goes against the concept of the blog as dialogue.<\/span>?<\/p>\n

Sullivan does have one feather in his cap. His single-minded pursuit of fellow Republican Trent Lott a few months ago for his on-the-record support for segregation resulted in Lott losing the cherished US Senate majority leadership position. Now, Sullivan has a new target in his sights: Senator Santorum, That name sounds so Star Wars-like. Palpatine, Santorum, Sebulba… Which of these is not like the other?<\/a><\/span>who seems to be for legislating against gay sex. Sullivan, who is gay, may not win this latest round, but not for want of trying.<\/p>\n

Which leads me to the original thought in this post (sorry to take so long): Sullivan may have finally solved that dilemma first formulated by Woody Allen all those years ago in his exordium<\/a> to Annie Hall<\/em>: <\/p>\n

The-the other important joke for me is one that’s, uh, usually attributed to Groucho Marx, but I think it appears originally in Freud’s wit and its relation to the unconscious. And it goes like this-I’m paraphrasing: Uh … “I would never wanna belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The recipe for happiness, then, is simple: Join a club that would rather not have you as a member. For good measure, Sullivan has joined two: The Catholic Church, which calls homosexuality a sin, and the Republican Party, which believes Santorum is an “inclusive” man, as the President opinedIt’s April 27, and it is snowing outside!<\/span>.<\/p>\n

There is something unusual about a gay person so determined to label himself as not just religious, not just Christian, but Catholic, of all things. The differences between denominations are doctrinal, and the intelligent religious person, surely, will see that these schisms are the work of Man, not God. So join a more tolerant faith, already! But not Sullivan: He has joined a group of people whose tenets are clearly homophobic, and now protests too loudly all the way to communion.<\/p>\n

As for his Republicanism, it is even odder, in my mind. He is British, first off, cannot even vote, certainly can’t register to vote and hence has absolutely no use for labeling himself Republican. Why can’t he just be the sum of his beliefs? Is he under the impression that attaching a label to his thoughts confers some kind of prestige? Andrew Sullivan, label whoreLabel whore<\/a>: “Someone who only wears brand name clothes, with the name of the brand usually placed somewhere for all to see. A walking advertisement for a clothing store or brand.” <\/span>?<\/p>\n

I believe, despite protests to the contrary, that he truly enjoys his pained crises of conscience. They are entirely of his own making. But perhaps there are signs that enough is enough: This week he said<\/a> that “it is beginning to make it simply impossible for gay people and their families – or any tolerant person – to vote for the president’s party.” Is he preparing us for a highly public defection?<\/p>\n

Don’t count on it. But it may become necessary to read Sullivan again. Not for the quality of the discourse, but as a psychological drama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog has at times been quite obsessed with the musings of Andrew Sullivan, mainly because if there is one thing which exasperates me it is seemingly smart, articulate people spouting absolute nonsense. Naomi Klein is his left-wing equivalent.This was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-economics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7eNhC-3m","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}