Andrew Sullivan's Excellent Point and the 5 Most Dangerous Words in the English Language

Simple and effective, as most clever things are. I don't know why I didn't htink to ask this, but I didn't.
THE SOCIAL RIGHT AND GAYS: My debate with David Blankenhorn on the matter of marriage rights is now posted. In many ways, I think the most telling part of the conversation was at the very end. Blankenhorn was asked a simple question by a member of the audience: since you oppose marriage rights for gay couples, what do you support for them? What's amazing is that after decades of thinking about marriage and several years mulling the issue of marriage for gays, David still had no answer. Frum has no answer. Gallagher has no answer. Kurtz has no answer. I have to say I find this quite extraordinary. It is as extraordinary as the social right's complete indifference to the revolution in gay culture and society these past two decades. I just read Rick Santorum's book about conservatism and the "common good." It's better than I expected and has many pages devoted to excluding gay couples from civil marriage. But again: I could find no practical, constructive suggestion from Santorum on what he believes should be our civil policy toward gay couples. Should they be deterred from settling down? Should they be encouraged to make faithful commitments? Should their households, when they include offspring, be legally protected? Silence. Nada. Zip. The "common good" does not include gay people or their kids. For much of the social right, homosexuals simply do not exist. Our reality is so threatening to them that they cannot even begin to construct a viable social policy toward us. And that's why they're losing this debate. In many ways, they haven't even joined it.

The Right can't simply come out and say, "stop existing", it's too late for that and anyone with a modicum of decency would be turned off. No, they can't answer because, like similar folk on the Left, the truth is unspeakable. Like their tutors on the Left, it's better to make some seemingly positive social policies (and damn the consequences) and quickly change the subject.

The 5 most dangerous words in the English Language are still:
Maybe it will go away.