Then something happened that convinced him that he (Sullivan) had been 100% wrong about Bush and he did a full-180 turn on GW Bush and conservatism. What was that momentous event that caused his conversion? Bush would not back gay marriage.

Sullivan is a very unstable and troubled person. Sad.

And Ozzie, Andrew Sullivan *has* gone off the deep end. You’ll only get confused by attempting to treat him seriously. This happens occasionally: Someone formerly capable of rational discourse discovers the straw that breaks his sanity’s back, and completely loses it. His refusal to give up on the “Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy to pretend to have Bristol’s baby” rumor says everything you might need to know about where he is at these days.

I don’t have time at the moment to research it, but it’s my understanding that Congress _can_ do this – that is, place certain issues off-limits. I assume that there are limits on this – the Presidential veto would be one – but I don’t really know. Otherwise, I think Congress would be likely to place _all_ their laws outside the jurisdiction of the Court!

You’re looking at this as if it’s only about gay marriage – and the privledges marriage offers.

Maybe if you read this article, you’ll get a better grasp of the dangers posed by subesquent legislation and understand where I’m coming from:

Published on Monday, July 26, 2004 by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

House Vote Doesn’t Only Threaten Gays
by Jay Bookman

“. . . Frustrated by the Senate’s failure to produce even a majority of votes in favor of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, House leaders decided to take a more controversial approach. Citing an obscure and largely untested provision of the U.S. Constitution, the House voted 233-194 to bar the Supreme Court from considering the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law dealing with gay marriage.

That is a power grab of breathtaking consequence. If Congress has the authority to tell the Supreme Court that certain issues are off-limits, it would give legislators a free hand to do whatever they wished, without worrying about whether it violated the Constitution. The whole idea of a separation of powers could be rendered null and void if that happened.

And unfortunately, it could. The provision in question, Article III, Section 2, gives the federal courts the power to decide a broad range of cases, including challenges to the constitutionality of federal laws. However, it also grants the courts that power “with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”

Theoretically, that allows Congress to pass a law — say, making it a felony to criticize members of Congress — and then forbid the courts to review such a law. It could pass a law making Christianity the national religion, and bar the courts from hearing a challenge. It could allow government to tap our phones without a warrant, or toss dissidents into prison without trial, and refuse to allow the courts to intervene.

That’s why the provision has remained obscure and largely untested. Previous generations of politicians, even in the heat of intense battle, have understood and respected the potential damage it could do. They saw it as a Pandora’s box that once opened could threaten not just our constitutional liberties but the whole concept of a balance of powers among the judicial, legislative and executive branches. . . ”

for full article:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0726-08.htm

Here we go again.

Gays want to be “married”. Why? Do you really believe that marriage offers them something other than the 1200 or some privileges that are offered to heterosexual married people at this time? So let’s assume that the privileges are extended to marrieds who are gay…what is your justification for not extending those privileges to singles?

Wouldn’t it be preferable to just eliminate all of the privileges and remove authorization for marriage from the civil sphere? How about if return it to the religious sphere solely? How is marriage a function of your preferred secular society? Isn’t that a mixture of church and state? I’d think you’d oppose it…

I remeber when Conservatives cared about preserving the Constitution.

I’ve read Sullivan for years, and while he no longer backs today’s Republicans, (who are also not Conservatives) he’s hardly a liberal.

This is what he said when he finally saw through the Gay Marriage smokescreen:

“It was because I believed in the Constitution of the United States that I felt no qualms in backing this president and in fighting rhetorical wars on his behalf – because that Constitution was under attack. . . So you can see, perhaps, why the bid to write anti-gay discrimination into this very Constitution provokes such a strong response from me – and so many other people, gay and straight, and their families. It robs us of something no one in this country should be robbed of – equality and inclusion in the founding document itself. When people tell me that, in weighing the political choices, the war on terror should trump the sanctity of the Constitution, my response is therefore a simple one. The sanctity of the Constitution is what we are fighting for. We’re not fighting just to defend ourselves. We are fighting to defend a way of life: pluralism, freedom, equality under the law.”

I totally get where he’s coming from.

Sullivan saw through the legislation as something that goes beyond the gay marraige issue, to actually insert descrimination into the Constituion.

When the gay marriage admendment failed, House members tried to circumvent the Supreme Court to undermine protections under the Constitution, and change the separation of powers forever.

(This is where reality is as strange as ficion: .In the book, It Can’t Happene Here, which was written in the 1930s, Buzz Winthrop cozies up to religious zealots’ and also neuters the Supreme Court to turn the Republic into a dictatorship).

In any event, I’m interested in what Sullivan has to say, just as I was interested in what Phillips, Yurika and Hedges had to say.

Initially, the source of my information was former Chrisitanity Today reporter Katherine Yurikca, who’s written several articles on the Chrisitan Reconstruction Act, and on the Dominionists’ agenda .

I’d never heard of Dominionists until I stumbled up on her.

In addition to that, I’ve read several articles by Kevin Phillips, along with his book, American Theocracy.

I’ve also listened to interviews with Phillips, along with Chris Hedges.

That’s how I’ve come to my conclusions, Brian.

And, I just bought Andrew Sullivan’s book, “the Conservative Soul.”

I’m not sure if I’ll learn anything new, but I’m interested to see how he came to his conclusions as well.

You’re accussing me of doing exactly what you do: You make up your mind beforehand (in this case, that this legislation isn’t so harmless) and then use Google to locate information to make your case. And in turn, you try to belittle me by making it seem that my opinion comes from one single source.