Sullivan Vs. Sisters, Round Two

"Rail against the supposed grief we cause believers and wrap yourself in self-righteous anger if it makes you feel good- it’s your shtick and in these tough times I know you need a paycheck. But for the love of every young LGBTQI kid out there trying to find a way through this cruel world, please stop carping on about how events like Hunky Jesus 'empower every religious right prejudice about gays.' Bigotry like that is irrational and self- generating. They hate us because we’re GAY, Andrew, period.

"It’s actually the GAYS and all those stung by that hatred the Sisters try to help by creating space for a good belly laugh at all the holier-than-thou attitudes that keep us down. If we’re all going to Hell, there’s no reason we can’t have fun and look fabulous on the way! I’m sorry that a bunch of drag nun volunteers with a cheap sound system don’t rise to your definition of high art, but blasphemy is a democratic art form that delivers its most profound punch at street level where ordinary people struggle every day." - Sister Merry Peter, responding to Andrew Sullivan's criticism of the Hunky Jesus contest.

Read Sister Merry's full response.

Andrew Sullivan On "Hunky Jesus"

"I am a First Amendment absolutist, as readers know. And I'm also a solid defender of the right to blasphemy. But there are smart ways of doing this, ways that illuminate broader issues - think of 'The Book Of Mormon' or any South Park episode. And then there are smug, cheap and unfunny shots at the faith of other people. Really, this makes me feel like Bill Donohue. You want to grow some balls? Hold a Hunky Mohammed Contest on Ramadan. And, by the way, thanks for doing your bit to empower every religious right prejudice about gays." - Andrew Sullivan, on the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Andrew Sullivan On King & Spaulding

"To put pressure on lawyers defending clients or laws because lobby groups don't like them is deeply illiberal. It remains disgusting, for example, that rightwing groups targeted lawyers defending terror suspects and Gitmo prisoners. When the far right did this, it was despicable. Now that the left is doing it, it remains just as despicable.

"Memo to the gay rights leadership: the ends do not justify the means. Let DOMA have the most robust defense it can possibly muster and let us argue just as passionately for its unconstitutionality. When civil rights groups bully, they lose the moral high-ground. When you have men like David Brock leading the charge - and there are no means he has ever eschewed to achieve his ends - the danger is that we prove the far right's point. We must be better than them." - Andrew Sullivan, writing for Daily Beast.

HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"The chance to be part of a whole new experiment in online and print journalism, in the Daily Beast and Newsweek adventure, is just too fascinating and exciting a challenge to pass up. And to work with media legends, Barry Diller and Tina Brown, and with the extraordinary businessmen Sidney Harman and Stephen Colvin, is the opportunity of a lifetime." - Andrew Sullivan, announcing that his blog is leaving its four-year home at The Atlantic.

God Loves Homosexuals SO Much, He's Gonna Kill The Fuck Out Of Them

The Christianists at True Life have put together an astoundingly nasty "ex-gay" presentation in which they assure us, that YES, of course God loves homosexuals. But you're still going to die in agony decades early because of your detestable sins. The clip's host says that he's glad God gave him AIDS, because that made them SO much closer! Deadly disease = eternity jackpot! True Life even pulls out some old quotes from Andrew Sullivan and presents them with no context. (Note how the entire clip is done sotto voce, because that makes the bile sound nicer.)
(Via - Good As You)

Andrew Sullivan On Homocons And GOProud: They Are Nauseating

In a video essay posted today on Big Think, Andrew Sullivan muses "How Can Anyone Be Gay And Republican?" Here's an excerpt.

You know, I used to say, we have to stay in these parties because certainly gay people do not want to become a Democratic Party constituency that is totally taken for granted, which is, of course, what has happened. When you have no leverage over the party, they don’t do anything for you—except take your money and invite you to cocktail parties, which is all that’s happened really in two years under Obama with two houses of Congress.

But at the same time, you know, this Homocon thing... it was in someone’s apartment. I mean the idea that this has been any genuine meaning out there for most people, there are plenty of gay people; many, many, many more I think than other minority groups actually, who would love a party of limited small government, prudent, strong foreign policy, balanced budgets, live and let live, like the British Tories. And if the Republican Party ever becomes that again, I think there will be plenty of places for gay people in it.

But to do so and join a party on condition that we oppose our own civil rights and our own basic civil equality seems a non-starter for me. I mean, it’s... there’s something quite nauseating about it actually. And you see even, like, Chris Barron who is the head of Homocon, or whatever they are calling themselves, GOProud, having to say that when Jim DeMint goes on and says that no gay person should be a school teacher, which is to the—which Ronald Reagan rejected in 1978—where are you left?

Watch the video on Big Think. Obviously, we agree.

HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"Many of us fought for years to construct a conservatism that treated gay people as individuals and as equal citizens. We fought, as GOProud does, to rebut the notion that being gay means being a socialist or a leftist. But we also fought to have core civil equality recognized - in military service and marriage, and we fought against an agenda that placed gay victimology at its center. What GOProud has done, in inviting this woman, is much more than that: it is to invite someone who actively opposes our civil equality - equal rights, not special rights - and whose record of anti-gay bigotry is as plain as the collar bones on her shoulders." - Andrew Sullivan on Ann Coulter's Homocon appearance.

Andrew Sullivan On Christine O'Donnell

"A mischievous thought: when will someone ask O'Donnell, as a single woman, if, since her conversion to Catholicism, she has ever masturbated? She cannot have had any sex, right? And that includes sex alone. Since she has made this a public stance, and since, apparently, she cannot lie (even if it would mean handing over Jews to Nazis), she has made the question perfectly legit." - Andrew Sullivan on Christine O'Donnell, who has said if she knew where the Jews were hiding and the Nazis asked, she'd have to tell them because she cannot tell a lie.

HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"It seems pretty obvious to me...that the current Pope is a gay man (just as it was blindingly clear that John Paul II was straight). I am not claiming that Benedict is someone who has explored his sexuality, or has violated his own strictures on the matter. There is absolutely no evidence of that, or of hypocrisy of any sort. But that does not mean that he isn't gay.

"In fact, Ratzinger's command that gay priests should actively lie about their orientation makes any public statement about this on its face lacking in credibility. But when you look at the Pope's mental architecture (I've read a great deal of his writing over the last two decades) you do see that strong internal repression does make sense of his life and beliefs. At times, it seems to me, his gayness is almost wince-inducing. The prissy fastidiousness, the effeminate voice, the fixation on liturgy and ritual, and the over-the-top clothing accessories are one thing.

"But what resonates with me the most is a theology that seems crafted from solitary introspection into a perfect, abstract unity of belief. It is so perfect it reflects a life of withdrawal from the world of human relationship, rather than an interaction with it. Of course, this kind of work is not inherently homosexual; but I have known so many repressed gay men who can only live without severe pain in the world if they create a perfect abstraction of what it is, and what their role is in it." - Andrew Sullivan.

HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"It is worth noting, once again, how utterly hollow the Vatican is on the subject of homosexuality. It is an institution so embedded with homosexuality it makes Broadway look straight. The stories I've heard! The network of gay priests is vast in Rome, and is, in my mind, as unhealthy for those who get away with it - the hypocrisy must hollow out the soul in the end - as for those who impose it. Instead of grappling with this fact, owning it, and seeking to diversify the priesthood by ending the celibacy requirement and men-only anachronism, the Vatican clings on to denial and repression.

"And as society and the actual church evolves - as both must - the denial and repression must increase in proportion - until the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing becomes apparent even to the most devout. Increasingly, on these issues of modernity, the Vatican of the new millennium seems like the Soviet Politburo of the 1980s. They pretend to believe what they preach while we pretend to obey them. One day, this surreality will pop like a bubble. One day." - Devout Catholic Andrew Sullivan, responding to the latest gay scandal at the Vatican.

RELATED: If you ever get a chance to sit down with our Father Tony, ask him for a few of his juicier stories from his time serving at the Vatican. "Gayer than Broadway" is putting it mildly.

HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"Is Obama actually going to use a Supreme Court nominee to advance the cause of the closet (as well as kill any court imposition of marriage equality)? And can we have a clear, factual statement as to the truth? In a free society in the 21st Century, it is not illegitimate to ask. And it is cowardly not to tell."- Andrew Sullivan, joining the call for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to address the rumors of her gayness.