Slate's Bizbox
the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990
from: Katha Pollitt

Headline

Posted Thursday, April 23, 1998, at 4:57 PM ET

Now, Andrew, you know perfectly well that I support the right of gays to marry, for exactly the reasons of civil liberties and civil rights you cite. You even anthologized my essay on the subject. So please don't get on your high horse about gay marriage with me.

And who exactly is this "left" that shuns "fidelity and bourgeois bliss"? Outside some small gay subcultures, like Sex Panic, I think there are few who take this position on principle -- i.e. yes you must have sex outside your relationship, and no, you can't have a nice quiet domestic life with children and a house. (I don't know that I'd call Linda and Paul, world-class celebrities and millionaires many times over, "bourgeois," exactly, by the way.) In practice, of course, people of all political persuasions are unfaithful and choose other things -- fame, power,excitement, variety, attention, distance -- over making a sane, responsible life with a loved partner. And many -- especially in the gay world and maybe the White House too-- have "bourgeois bliss" with a life partner and sexual excitement somewhere else. I don't think politics has much to do with these intimate only half-conscious decisions, it comes from someplace deeper.

Face it, Andrew: as ideology,family values rule, left, right and center! In practice, they compete with all the other exigencies and opportunities of reality and human nature.

Just for the record: my own relationship is so square it's cubic. It's just not a legal marriage. I think you are making a mistake to equate distaste for wedlock with libertinism. There are many more than two sides to these issues!

Cheers,
Katha

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990
from: Katha Pollitt

Headline

Posted Thursday, April 23, 1998, at 4:57 PM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Katha Pollitt is a columnist at The Nation. Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at the New Republic.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
A Grand Tour
David Broder | While the stars align for Obama, McCain is looking like the odd-man-out on foreign policy.
Annette Heuser: A Honeymoon