Dan Savage, Conservative?

Benjamin J. Dueholm, a Lutheran pastor, delves into the sex columnist's highly ethical world:

Underlying all of Savage’s principles, abbreviations, and maxims is a pragmatism that strives for stable, livable, and reasonably happy relationships in a world where the old constraints that were meant to facilitate these ends are gone. Disclosure is necessary, but not beyond reason. “Honesty [is] the best policy and all,” he advised a guilty boyfriend, but “each of us gets to take at least one big secret to the grave.” Stuck with a husband whose porn stash has grown beyond what you thought you were signing up for? Put it behind closed doors and try not to think about it.

Who knows how many good relationships have been savedand how many disastrous marriages have been avertedby heeding a Savage insistence on disclosing the unmet need, tolerating the within-reason quirk, or forgiving the endurable lapse? In ways that his frequent interlocutors on the Christian right wouldn’t expect, Savage has probably done more to uphold conventional families than many counselors who are unwilling to engage so frankly with modern sexual mores.

Dan is busted. He is one of the most reality-based conservatives I know.

2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan