LGBT DUers: Do you have a positive or negative opinion of Andrew Sullivan?

[QC]

Simple binary poll posted without comment to get a rough read on how DU's LGBT community views Sullivan.

[xchrom]

1. sully is a conservative ass wipe that appeals democratic moderates. nt

[joeybee12]

2. On a good day...also,

is there an option, for very, very, very, very negative?

[xchrom]

3. +1

[closeupready]

16. If there is , would you add me to that list?

nt

[keopeli]

4. He's either a charlatain or he's blind.

No one can be the ardent supporter of former pres. bush* for so long and expect people to listen to you, even after apologizing profusely. He's behavior demonstrated to us all that he is either a charlatain who shifts with the political winds or he is completely blind, unable to distinguish between right and wrong on critical issues.

As a caveat, when Sullivan speaks about GLBT issues, I am more prone to listen to him. This doesn't mean I believe him, but I think he is affected directly by these issues and his comments sometimes contain moments of truth.

[joeybee12]

5. Obvioulsy on LGBT issues I find myself agreeing with him...but he

never makes any original points...there are people far smarter and more decent who say the same thing, and usually say it before he gets around to plagarizing it from them.

[MNBrewer]

6. I call Sullivan the "stopped watch pundit"

because even a stopped watch is right twice a day.

[Vanje]

7. Log Cabin Libertarian

But he's an equal opportunity guy. Sullivan seems to loathe everyone.

[Unvanguard]

8. Can I go with "mixed"?

I really, really, really hate Virtually Normal: my copy of the book is full of angry, sarcastic comments in the margins. I really hate how no one remembers his stupid, Rand Paul-esque attacks on anti-discrimination laws when they praise him for his oh-so-courageous early embrace of marriage equality as a cause. I was infuriated by his defense of Obama's choice of Rick Warren, which seemed to me to rely on similar illogic. And, to generalize that, as a leftist, his politics and general outlook often bother me; I would sympathize more with his criticisms of "Gay, Inc.", which of course many other commentators also criticize, if I didn't wonder how much of it was traceable to his dislike of its liberalism rather than its (alleged) elitism and inefficacy.

But I honestly enjoy reading the Daily Dish. I enjoy it way too much to retain a strongly negative view of its principal author. I thought the reporting it did on Iran was impressive, and its gay rights coverage is broadly thoughtful, if sometimes not sufficiently analytically sharp. I find Andrew Sullivan's more recent engagements with conservatives like Ross Douthat to be much more interesting, more powerful, and more insightful than his critique of conservatism in Virtually Normal, and I suspect that they might be more effective than what I would say precisely because he has more common ground to work from. So I'm left with a lot of ambivalence.

[dsc]

9. His editorship of the New Republic was nothing short of scandalous

He is more responsible than any other single person for us not having had health care reform back in the early 1990's. That, and his idiotic position on anti discrimination laws, infuriated me to no end. His hypocrisy of living in places such as DC and New York, where thanks to liberals he couldn't be discriminated against, while simualtaniously sentencing us who live in red states to be fired at the whim of bigots was literally unbelievable.

[yardwork]

28. He epitomizes the attitude - "I've got mine, Jack."

[Maven]

10. I see we have a few visitors

from GDP.

[ruggerson]

13. Good thing the admins can see who voted and which way

[Zorra]

11. He's a rare conservative - he doesn't seem to hate us.

And that's refreshing.

But he's still a conservative, and from long experience, we have learned that they vary from being completely untrustworthy to being our deadly enemy.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. thats because he is us. nt

[Zorra]

24. Yeah, but with conservatives that often does not matter.

Until they're out or outed, and sometimes even after they're outed.

Ken Mehlmann immediately comes to mind as an example.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

25. He was outed

[terrya]

12. Mixed.

He was one of the first pushing for marriage equality. I wasn't crazy about his cheerleading for Bush, to put it mildly.

[closeupready]

15. VERY negative. He's an opportunist, and the type of gay person who sells himself

to potential sex partners as "straight-acting, straight-appearing," i.e., someone of whom I have no time for. A big phony who only wants large endowments and doesn't give a crap about personality.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

23. ...

Nailed it

[Behind the Aegis]

17. NEGATIVE

The problem with using "broken clocks" is that you will be wrong the other 23 (22) hours of the day. So, why not solve the problem and actually use one that works! David Duke can say the earth is round, which is correct. I sure as FUCK wouldn't use his statement as "proof" and then pass it off as "well, a broken clock is right twice a day."

[meegbear]

18. Let's see ...

* He wrote articles justifying pharmaceutical companies charging high fees for HIV medication while running pharmaceutical ads on his website

* Lectured on the "immorality" of President Clinton while having ads in BarebackCity.com (I'll top, but I'd rather bottom so I can get those milky loads)

* Lectured us on how stupid we are because we didn't support invading Iraq, then lectured us on how stupid we are because we did (Dan Savage pulled the same shit, but when he realized he was wrong, he apologized and shut up about it)

(this one I've heard, but haven't been able to validate if true - just general douchebaggery that sounds like him)

Showed up late with his partner during the premiere week of Batman Begins, they get the last two tickets and starts screaming that they better not start the movie until people move so they can sit together

For me, "he's a nice guy when he's not around"

[QC]

19. Andrew Sullivan is above all else a solipsist,

so the movie story is perfectly believable. Everything is always and everywhere about him.

Do you remember how he hated the "hairy-backed homos" back when he still had the GAP model looks that turned Marty Peretz's head (the reason he got the editor gig at TNR)? But once he got fat and hairy himself he began extolling the bear scene.

He used to hate the hypermasculine thing, until he started using Androgel, at which point he wrote obsessively about the joys of testosterone, as Neal Pollock parodied so brilliantly.

When he got a Macintosh, that became the only proper thing for anyone to do and made him an even greater example of all that is right in the world than he was before. (Once again, Neal Pollock is spot on.)

When he was madly in love with George W. Bush, those who opposed the Iraq War were "America-haters" and "terrorist appeaseniks," but the day he began to oppose the war--in typical Sully style, the day it became perfectly obvious that the war was a failure--then opposing the war became the only position any intelligent person could possibly hold.

When Sully's private life of barebacking was under wraps, then he was quite the moralist, what with his condemnations of Bill Clinton and the "libidinal pathology" of other gay people, but when his cover was blown he became a crusader for privacy and scourge of "sexual McCarthyism."

And so on.

Everything is always about Andy. He gives navel-gazing a bad name, and it disturbs me to no end to see what a following he has on this site. I can only hope that people just don't know his history, because the alternative is too horrifying to contemplate.

[meegbear]

20. +1

[closeupready]

21. I unrec every single Andrew Sullivan thread here, regardless of content.

I don't care that, like a broken clock, he may be right sometimes. He's a scumbag and nothing he has to say is important.

[yardwork]

29. It's simple. Sullivan is a "good gay" to people who don't like gay activists.

[Ignis]

22. This PFLAGer voted no.

For all the times the "party faithful" hold up the Log Cabin Republicans as an example of how unreliable :eyes: LGBTQ voters are as a core constituency of the Democratic base, I find it ridiculous that Sullivan is suddenly being touted as a reliable source on marriage equality, etc.

What a joke. :thumbsdown:

[yardwork]

31. Thank you! And this thing about blaming all gay people for the Log Cabin Republicans makes me laugh.

Poll after poll indicates that GLBTQ voters support Democrats 70-80% of the time. That is an incredibly strong and consistent show of support. Yes, 25% of GLBTQ are selfish assholes. But the vast majority of GLBTQ and close to 100% of our allies are strong Democrats. (I think that there are some Republicans who support gay rights, but they are few.)

The Democratic Party should be grateful to us and our allies. Instead they treat us like embarrassments. Fewer GLBTQ voted Democratic in 2010. This is a trend that the Democratic Party would do well to notice and try to turn around. Right now they've got something like 75% of GLBTQ voters (maybe 10% of the country) on their side. What if the percent of GLBTQ voters supporting Democrats drops to 50%?

If the Party thinks that they can keep GLBTQ voters in the Democratic Party by yelling at us that we're ungrateful, then they need to rethink their strategy.

[QC]

26. Well, this should put to rest the bizarre yet widepread notion

that Andrew Sullivan is Supreme Empress of All Homos.

I get so tired of being told that he's my leader.

[yardwork]

27. He can be your leader. Mine is still the ex-Mrs. Melissa Etheridge. /snark

[QC]

30. I LUVZ HER YAMMIKY!1!1!!

[yardwork]

32. I love you, QC!

I haz baise-bull cap11111!!!!!!

[QC]

33. Back at ya, doll! n/t

[Zorra]

34. LOL!

:rofl:

[mitchtv]

35. you've seen "the good wife" now see

"the good gay" starring Andrew Sullivan