Andrew Sullivan on Watching Larry Craig

I read Sullivan pretty regularly. There are times where he and I certainly part company, but, at our core, we are in the same boat, as essentially libertarian conservatives who found our party co-opted by racists, sexists, and christian extremist whack jobs.

This one, though, is a thoughtful, and humanely generous account of the emotions raised by issues like this.

Like when he says:

And he constructed an identity in opposition to this "lifestyle" early, out of pain and defensiveness and terrible fear. He is now wedded to this life he created - more than to his wife

or this:

If you want an argument for why the cause for gay visibility, dignity and equality is necessary and indeed noble, just watch that interview again.

or especially this:

Craig was seeking in that toilet stall a connection, a shard of intimacy, that the world would not give him, or that he could not give himself. No one should have to live without that intimacy and dignity - no one. Living a life like that - a deeply lonely, compromised, painful interior existence - is a very sophisticated form of hell. No human can keep it up for ever. No human should have to keep it up for ever.

He is a hypocrite; and he made his choices. I am not going to dispute that. His voting record helped sustain the misery for others that he lived with himself. He is for ever responsible for that.

But he is also a victim. And to see such a victim's pain exposed brutally in a public restroom pains me. He needs help. So do millions of others.

Bravo Mr. Sullivan.

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