al Qaeda strikes a blow for gay marriage

It seems to be a hallmark of Andrew Sullivan to hold with conviction a particular set of opinions a point in time without realising how they relate to his previous opinions on the same issue. Brad DeLong recently analysed this phenomenon at the philosophical level, and the examples just keep coming. Sullivan has never been clear on whether he views the Republicans' opposition to gay marriage as a sufficient cause in itself for his current disenchantment with them despite their very manly War on Terror -- an intellectual mess which leads to posts like this:

NOW, SPAIN: It's no longer big news that another country is adopting equal rights for gay couples. Almost every civilized country has done so or is about to do so, apart from the U.S. But Spain's adoption of marriage itself strikes me as a big deal ... For gay equality to have arrived in the land of Franco is a sign of how profound the social revolution has become. And how irreversible.

Yes, the land of Franco -- and the land of Socialists and Bin Laden appeasers who just six months ago had turned Spain back into al Andalus, the beachhead of a new Islamic invasion of Western Europe, if one believed what he had to say in the aftermath of the 11-M bombings:

BIN LADEN'S VICTORY IN SPAIN: It's a spectacular result for Islamist terrorism, and a chilling portent of Europe's future ... the removal of the Taliban and the Saddam dictatorship were two major blows to the cause of Islamist terror ... So it's vital that the Islamist mass murderers target those who backed both wars. It makes total sense. And in yesterday's election victory for the socialists, al Qaeda got even more than it could have dreamed of ... GREATER ISLAM: But there's another obvious reason for the targeting of Spain. It was once in part a Muslim-controlled country. The agenda of bin Laden and other Islamo-fascists is to reconquer those regions in Europe and the former Soviet Empire for a new Islamic Reich...

So is it a new rebranded Islamic Reich that sees gay marriage as a great PR move, or a fiendish plot to conquer Europe by further reducing its birth rate?