Went in dumb, come out dumb too
Rod Dreher charges gay marriage greases a slippery slope to greater religious freedom for traditional conservative Mormons in Utah.
Huh?
Surely this guy is a liberal fifth columnist masquerading as a conservative, deliberately sowing sabotage in an effort to make social conservatives look desperately ridiculous. Not even a monkey on acid could accidentally make an argument this stupidly contradictory and self-defeating.
Hmmm, but looks like the spell didn't take first go-round. Muons maybe. So he doubles down. The monkey averts its eyes out of compassion, and Alex Jones begins to look sharper by the minute.
Whether he's intending to be a saboteur or is simply too shallow to put together a reasoned argument on the topic is still an open question IMO.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, regardless of the answer, that his readers are assuming that what Dreher says is the sum total of the conservative position on the topic. And why wouldn't they, given the number of words contained in a typical Dreher post -- it is not unreasonable for the unfamiliar that it is as thorough a treatment as can be mustered.
His willingness to serve as a turnkey straw man for the SSM proponents could do real damage if he had any readers. We can be thankful that he has few.
For what it's worth, The American Spectator included Dreher in a multi-part symposium for recommended reading at Christmastime. They also invited Daniel Dennett so we might presume that the contributors aren't limited to conservatives.
ReplyDeleteDreher isn't the only person to plug his own book, which he describes as his "memoir." He writes that it's "for all of us rootless Americans who long for a place to call home," but the longing for roots doesn't prevent him from ALSO recommending a book of essays about Gay Paree.