The Scrutinator

Andrew Sullivan:

Look: I loathe the closet. I despise the hypocrisy in the Republican party. But a witch-hunt is a witch-hunt. If the gay left thinks it will advance gay dignity by using tactics that depend on homophobia to work, that violate privacy, that demonizes gay people, then all I can say is: they are wrong. They will regret it. It will come back to haunt them. And they should cut it out. The fact that their motives might be good is no excuse. Everybody on a witchhunt believes their motives are good. But the toxins such a witchhunt exposes, the cruelty it requires, and the fanaticism of its adherents are always dangerous to civilized discourse. What you're seeing right now is an alliance of the intolerant: the intolerant on the gay left and the intolerant on the religious right.

It seems more like the intolerant left hoping for intolerance in the "religious right."

Instapundit adds:

"[O]uting fever" among the activist left is very distasteful... It looks very hypocritical coming from people who've spent the last several years warning about Republican threats to privacy, and it also bespeaks an unprincipled hunger for victory and power at any cost.

Democratic activists engaging in sexual McCarthyism? Absolutely:

The difference [between 1950's McCarthyism and today's] is that the Democrats doing the persecution today can't fire gay Republicans directly; instead they are tracking them down and exposing them in the hope that the Republicans will be bigoted enough to fire them. Unfortunately, this has failed. Even Rick Santorum, supposedly the worst gay basher of the lot, refused to fire his gay aide after the man was outed.

What this has created is a huge (if ironic) double standard between the parties.

I wonder what those who oppose "incredibly seedy campaign[s] of prejudice, hatred and fear," who decry those they perceived as having "campaigned - campaigned - on further ostrosizing [the gay and lesbian] community," think?

Update: Ponder the extortion angle, too.

By The Scrutinator @ 10:57 AM