CHARLES MURTAUGH takes on left-wing homophobia.

UPDATE: Tony Adragna responds, and draws a fine distinction: “But let’s not confuse this with homophobia born of an irrational intolerance of homosexuals. The attacks on Andrew Sullivan are something different — a calculated attempt by a cabal of ideologues who share an intense hatred of Andrew Sullivan.” Arthur Silber, meanwhile, is less charitable. Meanwhile, Atrios calls me a “noted queer theorist!” (thanks!) and says that they’re worse at Free Republic, which seems to me to be a pretty lame defense.

I have to say that I’ve visited a couple of lefty blogs that invited me to link to them, and seen posts calling Sullivan the “blog queen” or whatever, and thought better of it. I don’t generally link to blogs that call people n*ggers either. Well, that’s just me.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Arthur Silber has another post, and he says it is homophobia.

ONE MORE: A reader emails that I linked to “BitchPundit,” who uses the term “butt pirates” to refer to Islamic hackers. Uh, okay. I didn’t really read that as being of the same order (nothing with “pirate” in it seems that bad to me) but okay. It’s not really the same as wishing that someone with HIV would die soon, though, is it?