DeLong Self-Smackdown Watch: In Which I Offer a Complete and Abject Apology to Andrew Sullivan: The Arc of the Universe Does (Sometimes) Tend Toward Justice Weblogging

Certainly since June 26, 2013, and for months before that, it has been clear to me that I owe Andrew Sullivan a complete and abject apology. And I have been nerving myself up for the jump. But I have delayed long-enough. And here goes:

Back when Andrew Sullivan first began talking about Gay Marriage, my thoughts were these: "Here is Bad Faith Andrew again. We all know--he knows--that Gay Marriage is at least a century in the future, if then. What lobbying for Gay Marriage does now is to split the Democratic Party and gets it into another of its internecine wars followed by activists sulking like Akhilleus in his tent. What lobbying for Gay Marriage does now is to solidify the right-wing nutjobs who make up so much of the people who do the legwork for the Republican Party--the people who are enraged by and respond to lines like: "They always blame America first, those San Francisco Democrats."

"Andrew is thus in the business of making life in America worse for LGBT people for the next fifty years, and is willing to have that happen in order to advance other policy goals, all the while posing as someone working for LGBT liberation.

"Scumball."

I was completely, totally, 100% wrong. Andrew was right in his judgment of the politics. America is, indeed, a better place along this dimension than I had dreamed would be possible. He saw that. And I did not.

I apologize, for my thoughts and for my words, for what I have done and what I have failed to do.