Decline and Fall

I know how insignificant my blog is, despite the recent spike from the tinfoil hat-wearing crowd, but I feel I at least ought to pay my (belated) respects to a blogosphere titan on having his own best week ever.

Sully was one of the main reasons I got into blogging in the first place. Four years ago I was working in Washington, DC and spending far too much time on the internet, and the Daily Dish was one of my regular stops. I had no idea what Andrew Sullivan looked like, nor did I know anything about his tenure at The New Republic. It took me a while to even realize he was gay. I just found his honesty, non-partisanship and openness to being proven wrong refreshing. Then one day I went to C.F. Folks, a fantastic little lunch place just off of Dupont Circle, and got into a fascinating conversation on, among other things, David Hume and the Effects of Weather on the History of Philosophy, of all things, with a British fellow who only introduced himself as he walked out the door. He was as idealistic, engaging and tenacious in person as he is in pixels. I always hoped to se him there again, but I never did. I kept reading though.

When I read his defenses of gay marriage, such as this one from 2004, I felt I was looking into the heart of someone who had suffered terribly from the conflict between tradition and reason and had come down on the side of reason, but on emotionally deep grounds. His struggle to find and keep love didn't seem all that different from my own, except for the fact that the world he lives in is populated by people who only wish him harm. I could only imagine how awful it must be to find true love only to have society demand that it not be acted on. Shades of Romeo and Juliet.

I likely would have never come around to being open to him had it not been for another event, which happened more than a decade ago: my brother came out of the closet and I was forced to see my own adolescent homophobia for the grotesque inhumanity that it was. After seeing how much happier and freer he was now that he wasn't wearing his heterosexual hairshirt, I realized that I loved my brother a lot more than I loved my devotion to dogma, but it took quite a bit longer before I was really comfortable around gay men. Sullivan helped with that, by showing me what my brother might be able to strive for if only our repressive, backward society would open up to the wonder and the joy of the wide breadth of human experience. Andrew Sullivan brought me closer to my brother, and for that I owe him a debt of gratitude.

So if for no other reason, Andrew, I thank you for being a catalyst in my life. I don't always agree with you, but then again if I did, I wouldn't still read you. I wish you and Aaron nothing but the best, and I hope you continue to inspire others, gay and straight, to open their hearts and minds to the wonderful possibilities of love. I am happy for you.