Andrew Sullivan lost me for awhile during what I consider his “Palin Fixation Period,” or PFP for those who may be taking notes. Thankfully, Andrew now seems to be on the road to recovery, and in a post today — regarding marriage equality and related subjects — he reminded me why I consider him one of the leading thinkers and authors of our time; not to mention, one hell of a good read. The entire post is here. An excerpt follows; the emphases are mine.
Rod believes that accepting my civil marriage as equal to his somehow erases the meaning of his own union. But it doesn’t. He is free as a person of faith to regard my civil marriage as substantively void and his as substantively meaningful; he is simply required as a member of this disenchanted polis to accept my civil marriage as legally valid. That’s all. Is that so hard? We can find a way forward to accommodate both our marriages in a public setting. I’m passionate, as every other defender of marriage equality that I know, in defending the rights of religious groups and churches to marry whosoever they want, according to whatever they believe, and to discriminate as religious groups in private contexts against those in their direct employ who violate those teachings. I defended the right to homophobia of both the Boy Scouts and the St Patrick’s Day parade. Heck, I’m even against hate crime laws.
I have nothing against the voluntary and peaceful activities of any religious group, and regard these organizations as some of the greatest strengths of America. The idea that gay people somehow want to persecute these churches, that we’re out to get you, and hurt you and punish you is preposterous. The notion that there are rampaging mobs of gay people beating up on Christians is also unhinged. To take one flash-point between a radical Dominionist group deliberately trying to rub salt in the wounds of Castro Street bar patrons after closing hours – in which no one was hurt – as the harbinger of some kind of mass gay pogrom against Christians is daffy. To equate a few drunks gays with Bull Connor is deranged and offensive. There are elements on both sides who do not represent the core. That core can coexist with mutual respect in the context of legal and civil equality.