Mark Spahn drew my attention to this blog post at Power Line. When I began blogging, in November 2003, I had never read Andrew Sullivan. I had heard of him, but that’s all. I read Sullivan’s blog for a couple of months, mainly for his posts about the war in Iraq. That he was a homosexual meant nothing to me. After a while, I began to notice intellectual dishonesty. President Bush announced his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). All of a sudden, he was persona non grata to Sullivan. Disagreement is one thing; reasonable people disagree about many topics, including the desirability of amending the Constitution to limit marriage to heterosexuals. To Sullivan, however, it was beyond the pale. Those who favored the amendment, or indeed opposed homosexual “marriage” at the state level, were religious bigots. He called the FMA the “Religious Right Amendment.” He began using the term “Christianists.” That was it for me. Sullivan had recused himself from rational discourse. I haven’t been back to his blog since, although I may have read a column or two of his in the past few years. It’s sad, really. Sullivan has a doctoral degree from Harvard University. He’s intelligent, well read, and articulate. He could contribute a great deal to public discourse. Instead, like Brian Leiter, he plays the thug.

Addendum: Some of you have heard me say (often tongue in cheek) that if you read me, I own you. It’s an exaggeration, obviously, but it makes a point. There are 24 hours in a day. There is far more to read than there is time in which to read it, so, like anyone else, I have to be selective. I gravitate to writers who have something to teach me, and who do it in a respectful way. Sullivan disrespected me by dismissing me as a religious bigot. He was saying that nothing I could say could possibly change his mind. My motives were bad (in his view), so my arguments couldn’t be good. I can’t make Sullivan stop writing; nor would I want to. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to give him any of my time, energy, or attention! He simply dropped out of my intellectual world, to be replaced by someone honest and respectful. What do the rest of you think of Sullivan? Do any of you read him?