What about him isn’t conservative? And how does that trump what is conservative?

“What about him isn’t conservative?”
you mean besides:
-being an open and proud hiv+ homo,
-living between ptown, ma and dc,
-being a european citizen but making a career out of interjecting himself into american politics
-spending roughly his first 25+ years in academia between grade school and the ultra conservative oxford and harvard.
-then spending the next 25 as a mediocre writer/political activist
-endorsed clinton, kerry, and now obama

this charade to appease your efforts to once again play dumb is growing tiresome!

as for how this guy trumps what is actually conservative: oh it doesn’t except that…
-he’s the only self-proclaimed “practicing catholic” i’ve ever heard of that is not only openly proud to be gay but hiv positive too.
-he’s admitted to anonymously seeking partners for unprotected gay sex over the web after knowing his infection status.
-and all this from a guy that homosexuals surely can’t want for a mouthpiece even though his primary issue seems to be equality for people who want to promote gay lifestyles.

sorry mr. sullivan, but i don’t care how many books you write, what degrees you have, or how much money you’ve made. you sir(used loosely) are no positive advocate for change. in fact while i take no pleasure in your suffering, your proven unhealthy and strange behaviors would make you one of the last people i would look to for ideas.

maybe i’m considering too strict of an interpretation of the word conservative here but the radically unhealthy change that this twank has spent a lifetime pursuing seems to conserve nothing. well maybe he does try to conserve his weed so he can smoke some later; i stand corrected.

you sir(used loosely) are no positive advocate for change.

That sounds like an excellent definition of a conservative to me.

I guess I’ll have to wait for someone else to explain this for me.

Preston — If I didnt’ change a single held belief, or change my stance on a single policy — but simply decided to call myself a Liberal — would that make it so?

I mean, if I simply self-define myself as Liberal, who are you (or anybody) else to say that I’m not?

He endorses and promotes Democratic talking-points and candidates. He constantly and consistently attacks Conservatives and conservative ideas.

His lifestyle and opinions are antithetical to actual conservative values.

Gay men can’t be conservative?

In any case, I’m just asking which issue makes him not conservative- nothing spectacular. Surely, if everyone is of the opinion that he is not conservative they must be able to cite, say, three things about him that aren’t.

I support:

A woman’s right to choose
Civil unions and/or gay marriage

And, I’m not a Christian (I’m agnostic).

These three issues, if I wore them as a bulleted list on a t-shirt to the furthest left protest or gathering you could find — would make me fit right in. Nobody would suspect for a moment that a rabid-right wing nut job was even in their midst.

Again — the only evidence of Sullivan being a Conservative is because he says he is. Nothing he does or says supports that claim.

The fact that he consistently endorses and backs Democratic candidates is enough for me.

And yes, you can be gay and Conservative. It’s just not the norm nor a typical Conservative trait or value (at least not to be openly gay and Conservative. Apparently we have a pretty high rate of closeted gay men in our party. NTTAWWT).

These three issues, if I wore them as a bulleted list on a t-shirt to the furthest left protest or gathering you could find — would make me fit right in

Which makes your instistence of a conservative orthodoxy more difficult to understand. I sincerely doubt that Sullivan has nothing more to recommend him as a conservative than his self-proclamation as one. According to wikipedia:

Sullivan is a libertarian-inclined conservative who has argued that the Republican Party has abandoned true conservative principles.[5] After supporting George W. Bush in the 2000 Presidential election, he endorsed Senator John Kerry for President in 2004. In 2006, he supported the Democratic Party’s takeover of Congress. His political philosophy includes a broad range of traditional conservative positions: He favors a flat tax, limited government, privatization of social security, and a strong military, and he opposes welfare state programs such as socialized medicine. However, on a number of controversial public issues—for instance, same-sex marriage and the death penalty—he takes a position typically shared by those on the left of the U.S. political spectrum. His position on abortion is more nuanced; saying that he personally finds it immoral and favors overturning Roe v. Wade, but he can accept legalized abortions in the first trimester.

My question is simply which of these issues has disqualified him in your mind.

In addition I wonder about the repeated mention of his health… Is it also a disqualifying condition of conservativism to have lung cancer? Heart disease? Alchoholism? These are also conditions that might reflect a less-than-rigorous abstinence from the Seven Deadly Sins- if that’s the issue.

Hey Preston.

At the most, what you wrote above about Sullivan would make him a libertarian, not a conservative. Conservatism implies social restrictions for the benefit of society, and economic liberalism. Mr. Sullivan definitely does not support the social aspects of conservatism.

Fair enough. Yet as I was mentioning Robbie isn’t an orthodox conservative himself. Apparently one isn’t excommunicated for supporting a right to choose, gay marriage, or for agnosticism yet something about Sullivan does the job.

I started all this by asking rather innocently but the lack of a satisfying answer certainly piques my curiosity.

“I guess I’ll have to wait for someone else to explain this for me.”
why, you would still pretend not to get it.

“Gay men can’t be conservative?”
i guess they can but openly gay advocates for the scrapping of traditional marriage rarely are. almost never are. i can’t name one; can you? didn’t think so.

“I’m just asking which issue makes him not conservative- nothing spectacular.”
one isn’t conservative or not based upon “one issue”. i agree that this concept isn’t “spectacular” but sometimes pressy debates aren’t as black and white as you may desire.

“they must be able to cite, say, three things about him that aren’t.”
i cited 5 or 6, political, professional, and personal. did you want sources?

“the lack of a satisfying answer certainly piques my curiosity.”
i didn’t realize that “satisfying” yourself was the intended goal. you asked a rather foolish question, appearingly playing devils advocate and it was answered ten times over by robbie, myself, and naz. you being foolish doesn’t mean that a satisfactory answer wasn’t given!