Andrew Sullivan, the gay blogger, is given a left-handed compliment in The New York Times Book Review’s look at his new book, The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back (10/22). The reviewer fantasizes about how many of President Bush’s administration who liked Sullivan’s blog would ‘… rise early… padding over to their computers and… [have] their first human contact of the day with a gay Catholic Tory.’ Sullivan wonders what has happened to his conservatism when he surveys the present U.S. government. He doesn’t much like its spending policies, its torture of prisoners in Iraq or its stand against gay marriage. In the book he questions where conservatism and he, personally, have gone philosophically. The reviewer doesn’t like his take on fundamentalists. Read and see for yourself.
The New York Times (10/29) says the Catholic Church is adopting new rules regarding gay people. Some of the things this document, ‘Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care,’ recommends are that gays probably ought to tell their friends, family and priest they’re gay but not announce it to the parish; that there is no agreement on whether therapy can help the situation and gays don’t have to try to change themselves; that being a homosexual is not a sin but having homosexual sex is a sin; and that though homosexuality is ‘objectively disordered,’ homosexual people are not ‘rendered morally defective by this inclination.’ This is considered an ‘authentic’ Catholic approach. It further states ‘ [t] he church cannot support organizations… whose work contradicts [or] is ambiguous about… her teaching on sexuality.’ So, this means the church cannot support itself?
Didja survive Halloween? This pagan holiday serves as one of Gaydom’s high holy days and a church on Chicago’s South Side has gay folk in interesting company; lolling in a cell were an Internet pedophile, a meditating Buddhist and several glittery homosexuals. These villains were meant to scare the tots to goodness, celibacy and Jesus, somehow.
Maybe we should get away from it all—like on a gay cruise on the Queen Mary II (Cunard Line) or Royal Caribbean (with a ship, Freedom of the Seas, that is bigger than Mary) or Olivia (off to the Galapagos and Antarctica). The New York Times (10/29) says lesbians and gays travel and spend more. Agencies are catering to the rainbow set. The cruises are so popular that straights are clamoring for ‘straight-friendly’ clauses on the membership lists.