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Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

Katha,
Did you write that pre-caffeine?

I never said or even implied you didn't support equal marriage rights. I merely protested that it is simply wrong to conflate the cultural arguments for marriage rights with the political ones. Which seems to me to be the point you're making in your response. So we agree. But in your previous posting - and in your piece in my marriage anthology - it is you who equated married life with certain "conservative" impulses, and (gently) warned homosexuals not to idealize it. You can't have it both ways.

But you're right, of course, that marriage can be interpreted and lived a zillion different ways; that many people in non-marital bliss can be more conservative in their way of life than some with church white weddings. But you're exaggerating surely when you say that the left has completely acceded to "family values". The Democrats have, but the Left? In lower Manhattan? All your friends at the Nation? Come off it.

Speaking of the Left, I'm glad that NOW has clarified itself today on the Paula Jones case. NOW is a liberal interest group designed to advance liberal policies with regard to women (if abortion on demand can be described as liberal) and consistently has no truck with abused or harrassed women who might in other circumstances hold conservative views. Both right and left in Washington are like this, of course. (I'm not saying that NOW is worse in the hypocrisy game than, say, the Christian Coalition which, bizarrely, supports Jones). The ends for all these organizations always justify the means. How else to explain the discrepancies between NOW's positions on Clarence Thomas, Bob Packwood, and Bill Clinton? But NOW at least has the good grace to admit it, and to get on with the nasty game of political warfare.

bye for now
Andrew

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