Andrew Sullivan: "You're doing to me what the Pharisees did to Jesus"

Hugh Hewitt = Pharisees; Andrew Sullivan = Jesus.

Well, duh.

Allah finds Hewitt's Socratic method tedious. So do I, actually. I know what he's getting at, but I'd wish he'd just get to the point quicker: Andrew Sullivan simply redefines "true conservatism" as whatever Andrew Sullivan believes (at this moment); Andrew Sullivan redefines "true Catholicism/Christianity" as whatever Andrew Sullvan believes (this week).

Sullivan is pro-life, last time I checked. (But who can keep up with his "evolutions"?) From where did this belief come? His education was at elite British schools and Harvard; hardly bastions of pro-life sentiment. He grew up in Britain, which has the highest percentage of young teens having sex in Europe, and thus, we may presume, one the highest abortion rates, and one of the highest rates of the acceptance of abortion as a morally neutral act in Europe. His entire career has been spent in the mainline British and American press, again, a demographic nearly monolithically hostile to pro-life politics.

So where did his pro-life beliefs come from? Well, from his Catholicism, of course.

Every person takes inputs which shape his thinking from his upbringing and religious beliefs (or lack thereof) and schooling and the culture of the demographic he lives within. This is as true for Andrew Sullivan as it is for a "pathetic pendant" like, say, Hugh Hewitt. And yet Andrew Sullivan apparently distinguishes in his mind between "good religious morality" (anything he believes in from his religious upbringing, like the sanctity of unborn human life) and "Christianist extremism," which is anything he doesn't believe in (such as moral opposition to gay marriage).

Why? What's the difference, precisely? There is no difference, fundamentally, except Andrew Sullivan believes in one and finds the other "gob-smackingly vile."

And doubts about one's beliefs is a good thing, unless it's doubt about what Andrew Sullivan himself believes, in which case such doubts are bad, and anyone who doubts such beliefs is an authoritarian homophobe (and probably a racist, too).

Hewitt begins asking him if he has any doubts about his various beliefs at the end of the interview, and Sullivan pretty much just dodges them all, apparently pretending he doesn't understand the point Hewitt's making.

Sullivan doesn't have a political philosophy or religion; he just has an ever-updated What's Hot/What's Not list.

The parody with Lilieks is hysterical.

See-Dub has thoughts on it, too.

posted by Ace at 01:56 PM

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