Andrew Sullivan is freaking out. He's completely lost it. Seems George Bush has decided to support a proposed Constitutional amendment reserving marriage to heterosexual couples. I oppose this amendment because I oppose amending the Constitution unless absolutely necessary, and this is not an issue that demands that sort of action.

Sullivan has demonstrated that he is a single-issue author. When we get right down to it, his single issue is gay rights. Well, I think there are a lot more issues that are currently a lot more important, since it seems to me that gays in the United States already have just about as many rights as they have had anywhere, anytime, in world history, and exactly as many rights as everybody else has. The biggest one of those issues is the war on terror. If Sullivan is going to abandon all his years of support of Bush over this little contretemps, that support must never have been very deep in the first place.

It's also interesting that Sullivan's single issue is one that personally affects him. His attitude is not altruistic; it is self-interested. Basically, he's interested in me, me, me, and the hell with everybody and everything else. The war on terror? Iraq? Building democracy? Afghanistan? Israel? Nope, he's turned against Bush because Bush doesn't agree with him over same-sex marriage. As if Andrew can't openly live with his boyfriend and do whatever the hell he pleases. He can go out and be just as gay as he wants. Nobody's going to stop him. But he's not satisfied; he demands the right to a legal formality that has until now been reserved for heterosexuals. And he wants it now. It's very important to him.

Now, I personally don't much care whether gay people can get married or not. Actually, they can. In Kansas City they can go down to the Metropolitan Community Church on the Plaza and get themselves as married as they want. The marriage has no legal standing, but who cares? Isn't the point of getting married to make a solemn commitment to one another?

Nope. Not if you're Andrew Sullivan.

It looks to me like President Bush was pushed to make the declarations he did by the spectacle going on in San Francisco. I have no idea about the legal questions involved according to California law, but apparently the city hall was marrying any same-sex couple that showed up and requested it. Now, maybe that's the way things should be. I really don't care one way or another. But elected officials should NOT go around breaking the laws of their state. If they think those laws are morally wrong, a fair enough position, then they should resign and campaign to change those laws politically. But simply turning up your nose and saying, "This is San Francisco, we'll do whatever we want and the hell with state laws" is not appropriate.