"Wait, people still read Andrew Sullivan?"

Oh, please. You political bloggers are freaking obsessed with the guy.

And, yes, it is really hard for guys not to cheat over the course of a monogamous relationship that may last half a century. Some truly great men have fucked that one up. That doesn't make it OK to do so; just not inconceivable that it could happen.

And yes, if you fuck up and cheat, it is sometimes best to just shut up about it, and not so much "compound the error with a lie" as keep a mistake from turning into a catastrophe for those involved.

Also, let's not miss the undertone here: "Boys will be boys but AS will never be a man [because he's a faggot]."

Any thread about Andrew Sullivan eventually resorts to cheap-shots about his homosexuality or even HIV+ status. Sometimes they're just more obvious than "ThomasD".

Don't worry.

So long as he's still popping those steroids I'm sure that he'll never be mistaken for Michael Jackson.

Let me see if I got this straight; pardon the pun.

You're allowed to troll the classifieds/Internet in order to continue your promiscuous, dangerous sexual proclivities-in spite of the fact that you already suffer from full-blown AIDS-but then get to stick others with the medical bill for your profligate, debauched behavior.

The government has no damn business in your bedroom, but when you want to redefine the basic concepts of marriage and family you expect a government magistrate to step in and overrule the wishes of Congress, every state legislature, and over seventy percent of the American public.

Tell me how that works again...

Case in point.

Why couldn't Gerard omit the homophobia preceeding "The government has ..."?

Actually Sullivan was recently saying that May was his best month outside of November 2004. It's funny how "conservatives" loved Sullivan when he came out swinging for Bush and Iraq. But they do not like Sullivan when he attacks the way the war was managed, the way the Bush administration handled Iraq as well as the GOP's big government policy. But then these "conservatives" stand for whatever the Party and its leaders tell them to. Da comrade, the Party a doma !

While I agree that many bloggers spend an inordinate amount of time commenting on Andrew Sullivan, all the while talking about how irrelevant he is and how no one reads him. Personally, I never read him now, and I rarely read him back in the early days of the blogosphere when he was all the rage. Now, I only hear about the guy whenever some conservative blogger links to him.

However, I think conservative bloggers' dislike of Sullivan goes beyond his disagreement with some of Bush's policies (and most conservatives agree with him on some of it including the big government thing). It's the fact that most of his disagreement with Bush *strangely* coincided with Bush's support for an amendment banning same-sex marriage. Second, Sullivan has a tendency to define conservativism as "whatever Andrew Sullivan believes." In my opinion, Sullivan has never been much of a conservative, but he does have some conservative/libertarian views. But he certainly isn't the archetypal conservative that he believes himself to be.

I agree 100% Jason. Like most "American conservatives," Sullivan is neither American or conservative. And while I agree with you that real conservatives are generally opposed to the Bush/Hassert/Frist spending binge, I think the usual suspects of former Trotskyites like Hitchens and Irving Kristol, Wilsonians who wish to pick fights across the globe for democracy, and the GOP cheerleaders who would applaud Bush if he procliamed Satan as his dark lord (Fred Barnes, Hugh Hewitt, etc) see no evil when it comes to spending as long as it is passed by a red congress as opposed to a blue one, hear no evil on Bush and speak no evil on the GOP. Alas, these are the men who seem to dominate "conservatism" today.

God I love Von Bek, when he agrees with me. ;)

Joe, Time magazine, one of the most widely read publications in America publishes Sullivan. That alone makes him relevant. Same goes for all the nutjobs on the NY Times editorial page. We wish we didn't have to pay attention to them but if left unchallenged, their influence only grows.

Also, what is homophobic, exactly, about what Gerard wrote? Sullivan IS HIV+ and DID troll classifieds for bareback sex. This is a fact. I didn't realize facts could now be mean-spirited.

Imagine that Maggie Gallagher enjoyed being gangbanged or Stanley Kurtz and William F Buckley swapped wives...Does anybody really think that Sullivan wouldn't use their nonmonogamous behavior to impeach their respective arguments against gay marriage?

Karol:

It was in response to Peter's incredulity. Anyone who reads Republican blogs knows that Andrew Sullivan is one of the right-wing blogosphere's favorite topics.

What's at least borderline-homophobic about Gerard's comment is:

* a joke about his AIDS treatment (the steroids)
* a pun on "getting straight"
* "promiscuous, dangerous sexual proclivities"
* "profligate, debauched behavior"

You could argue that none of these are necessarily anti-gay, taken individually. But, in toto, it reads an awful lot like gay-bashing.

If Gerard is not a homophobe, he sure does a good impression of one.

Certainly, the personal ad-hominems in Ace's comments section are outrageous:

* "I would bet every time Sullivan writes an article like this, it's the day after he cornholed a stranger and he's protecting himself from the truth leaking out."
* "Promiscuity is the norm in the homosexual community. Knobslobbery and mudbuggery is how they define themselves."
* "I've always thought of Sully as a 'receiver'. I think what is 'leaking out' is something else entirely."
* "It's really hard to refrain from violence against idiots like Sullivan. Does that mean I shouldn't have to?"

Still think that homophobia and gay-bashing isn't a major motivating factor in the blogosphere's anti-Sullivan screeds?

Yes, I do. Again, Gerard isn't talking about gay people in general, he's talking about Sullivan in particular. Why is it anti-gay to bash Sullivan for being a dumbass?

Because he's bashing Andrew Sullivan for being a dumbass in terms of him being a gay man.

If someone wants to call me an jerk, that's fine.

If someone calls me a cheap, hook-nosed, greedy, circumcized jerk, then that's a big clue as to the source of their ire.

I draw similar conclusions about many (not all) of the remarks made about Sullivan.

They seem to be of the "Andrew Sullivan is being dumb ... because he's too busy thinking about cock!" variety, more often than not.

Look, the reason he mentions Sullivan's anonymous hook-up thing is because of this particular post in which Sullivan basically excuses the kind of cheating that he did. And being HIV+, excuse me, is a great reason to NOT be cheating. It is entirely related to Sullivan's points. I'm not going to argue about what other commenters have said, just about this one particular comment.

Just because the right-wing blog elite doesn't like Sullivan anymore doesn't mean that "no one reads him." In fact, according to his public Sitemeter, he got 61,972 pageviews today and 425,452 this week. (http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm3DishStats).

And yes, Karol, I'm sure you're prepared to argue that the "he'll never be a real man" taunt has nothing to do with him being gay.

I 100% took it as a man who cheats is not a man but a boy.

Don't mind Joe. He did this to me once too when I wrote something completely innocent about gays on the old Allah blog. He was sure I was accusing them of being child molesters, and of course I wasn't.

Wish I could remember the exact wording.

Yeah, I vaguely remember that too.

I'm not bashing him for being gay, you smarmy, obnoxious, sanctimonious little twit. I'm bashing him for being cavalier about his body, and then expecting people who aren't as irresponsible as he is to pay for the consquences of his reckless behavior.

You can call me a "homophobe" or any of the other imbecilic, non-descriptive neologisms you PC fascists have invented in order to escape debate, and avoid addressing the issue, but it's not going to work. I've dealt with hundreds of leftist jackassses and liars-most of them more swift than you-and being accused of not absorbing the proper groupthink, and having been castigated by one of you shrill harpies for not blindly accepting the backwash of liberal "thought," isn't going to deter me from expressing my opinion.

Yeah, I vaguely remember that too.

You know why? Because you're a big fat GAYLORD.

Which is still vastly preferable to being a beta male.

I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, Gerard. I didn't realize someone so eager to rip into another person would be so sensitive when their own remarks are criticized.

I love how you accuse me of name-calling "in order to escape debate and avoid addressing the issue" and then label me:

* smarmy
* obnoxious
* sactimonious
* little
* a twit
* imbecilic
* PC
* fascist
* slower than your average leftist jackass or liar
* policing groupthink absorbtion
* shrill
* a harpy
* blindly-accepting
* backwash-drinking
* liberal
* unthinking

Pretty ironic, huh?

Something tells me Sully's unwillingness to pay his own hospital bills isn't your real beef with the man.

Why else would you be so worked-up over a "non-descriptive neologism"?

Allah:

Nah, I could never be gay. I love pussy too damn much.

But if I was gay, I would definitely be their Lord!

Oh yeah, and I'm definitely big and fat (5'11", 220 lbs.).

How am I being sensitive?

I just told you that I could care less what you think of me, so feel free to throw out all of those PC/Lambda-approved barbs that you consider to be scathing insults.

I'm not the petulant one who seems to be incapable of mounting a defense of his point of view without resorting to personal insults. If you want to learn my opinion about why redefining the concept of marriage via judicial fiat-in order to satisfy a miniscule portion of the population-is a bad idea, then just ask me.

On on ther other hand, if you want to engage in puerile, tit-for-tat exchanges-and I've never encountered a dogmatic pro-gay marriage liberal whose tactics don't basically amount to leveling a series of ad hominem personal attacks on his opponent's character-then so be it. Just don't pretend that you are engaging in some sort of substantive intellectual discourse, or that you have somehow proved the point that same-sex marriage is a valid proposition, simply because you can accuse everyone else-over sixty percent of the American public, by most estimates-of being "anti-gay, homophobic bigots."

Gerard:

"I'm not the petulant one who seems to be incapable of mounting a defense of his point of view without resorting to personal insults."

Are you serious?

And, yes, most of the American public *is* homophobic, just like most of the American public was racist 50 years ago.

Define "homophobic."

Being hateful towards a gay person, at least in part, because they are gay.

Do I have to define "hateful" and "gay" now?

Not "gay," but perhaps "hateful."

If you disapprove of any aspect of gay culture, is that homophobic?

Of course it is!

Has Katie Couric taught you nothing?

Tsk-tsk.

BTW Gross, the fact that my "hateful" comments are directed towards you...

Do you take that as some sort of prejudicial slight against fat Jewish men, or simply a response to someone who is a Grade A asshole?

I took it as the latter, but since you seem to enjoy casting aspersions on people's character-people who you do not know-instead of engaging in genuine debate, I'll defer to you on this point.

Should I stop critiquing a-holes if they belong to an ethnic/racial/religious identity other than my own, or does your unique conception of free expression preclude me from being honest if some jackass, who happens to belong to a different cultural demographic-or who chooses to have sexual intercourse with members of the same sex-attacks my character?

Just curious.

Gerard:

I haven't read a single thing that indicates you are the least bit anti-Semitic.

Allah:

It's only homophobic if one has a double standard, e.g. if a guy fucks a lot of women, he's an awesome stud, and if a guy fucks a lot of men, he's a disgusting pervert.

What possible relevance does that have to this discussion?

The blog entry that was cited focused on the opinions of two gay columnists/writers.

It wasn't a debate over whether sexual promiscuity by homosexuals is better or worse than similar behavior-at least, in terms of the number of sexual partners-among heterosexuals.

Gerard:

It has to do with the question Allah asked -- "If you disapprove of any aspect of gay culture, is that homophobic?" -- in the comment immediately following mine, at 08:32 PM.

(You know, that's why I said "Allah:" right above it.)

Sexual promiscuity is *an example* of an aspect of gay culture that is often harshly criticized. Furthermore, the same level of opprobrium is not attached to comparable behavior by straight men.

Well, it is an example of gay culture.

Are you saying that it should be exempt from criticism?

Being a promiscuous homosexual and being a promiscuous heterosexual are two entirely different things, which aren't truly comparable.

From an epidemiological standpoint being a promiscuous homosexual is much worse, notwithstanding certain exceptions, e.g. intravenous drug use, reckless behavior-take Magic Johnson, for example-and is "worse" in a number of ways.

Whether or not sleeping with members of the same sex is worse morally I can't say, since I'm not an ethicits.

Well, that sounds a lot more sensible and level-headed than your earlier comment.

Good day.