Fwd: Andrew Sullivan, Overexposed

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema crdbronx at erols.com
Thu Jun 7 06:41:19 PDT 2001


So maybe, instead, we need to argue and strongly, that his hypocrisy shows the vacuity and anti-human character of the moral standards he propounds.

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:


> if we delight in discovering that Sullivan the
> moralist doesn't follow his own prescriptions, we need to ask whether
> excoriating him for his hypocrisy risks reaffirming those very moral
> standards. In finding him a sinner, do we end up concurring with
> Sullivan's original understanding of sin--if only to turn the tables
> on him? In doing so, we don't challenge the moralizing, normalizing
> values that Sullivan espouses.

No one in this discussion has yet raised the question: where does Sullivan, who is gay, get off being a Catholic, and a histrionically devout one? "His own prescriptions" obviously derive from his Catholicism.

One of the enduring American reflexes is to presuppose that a person's professed religious faith is completely personal and private, and not subject to question. Why not? Sullivan's is a public ideological stance, which he has trumpeted widely. Strange, isn't it, that it seems easier to discuss his genital activities rather than his ideological commitments?

This hesitation to engage religious issues as topics of public discussion is a serious failure of the left. It blocks serious consideration of many matters that are obviously political.

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema



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