Dan Savage's "We can learn to ignore the bullsh!t in the Bible about gay people..." incident

Great Debates
1

I started to do this in IMHO as an opinion poll but there are way too many options to cover them all and with the subject matter if it gets any traction it will probably end up here anyway.

The story for those who aren’t familiar:

Dan Savage, writer and gay activist and originator of the “It Gets Better” meme, appeared at the National High School Journalist Conference in Seattle this weekend. His topic was school bullying, something most high school journalists should probably have an opinion about.

During his talk (video) he brought up the religious basis of homophobia. He did so rather undiplomatically:

He went on to discuss the Bible being used to justify slavery and the commandment that a non-virgin bride may be stoned to death and other barbarism the Bible endorsed and how it is ignored now.

The predictable shitstorm began before he was even finished speaking. Several students (as seen in the video above) got up and walked out of the assembly, presumably from being offended. Of them, Savage said, from the podium,

a comment that, it should be noted, got huge applause.

And of course the right wing started chest thumping and masturbating immediately, all the usual suspects on how persecuted all the Christians are by the big mean homo. You can google for more about Savage and more about the incident and more about the backlash.

So, my opinions are very conflicted:

On the one hand I think Savage was unnecessarily rude and deliberately offensive (i.e. I think he enjoyed offending, it wasn’t just to prove a point) and that the comment about people being pansy-assed presupposes that those who walked out are the same ones who favor or participate in bullying gays with the Bible as justification, which there’s no way of knowing.

OTOH, I agree with pretty much everything he said, and then some, and not so secretly sometimes wish I had the guts to be that deliberately offensive to large groups of the unexamined believers. I have come to absolutely detest cafeteria plan Christians and others who use scriptures to justify their bigotry, especially when it’s clear so many haven’t even read the thing they claim to base their life on.

On the other-other-hand, these are high school kids. Pick on somebody your own size, Dan; I’d have FAR less trouble if you’d said that at COLLEGE Journalist association even.

On the fourth hand, even from high schoolers you expect a certain amount of maturity and from those who are interested enough in journalism to go to a national convention you expect at least some nascent professionalism. If you’re really interested in journalism you are going to HAVE to be objective at things that personally offend you; you’re going to have to deal with people who believe in terrorism and torture and racism and every other thing you are hopefully against, and not just Fox News but the REALLY hardcore kind. If I were their faculty sponsor I’d have flunked everybody who walked out; I’d have done the same thing if they’d walked out of an Aryan Nations spokesman’s speech.

On the fifth hand…

Well, I’ll just ask, what do you think?

2

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

3

I love it, and will show it to my high school son tonight.

I am a Christian, and I have no issue reading the Bible with a full understanding that it was written down by a bunch of people from a culture I have no desire to emulate.

I do have an issue with your cafeteria Christian slam. It is the willingness to ignore some of the more odious passages and just select from, say, the Gospels that makes it possible to bring more Christians around. Don’t slam the cafeteria, embrace it.

4

I’m not sure it’s a good idea for an anti-bullying advocate to call anyone “pansy ass.” Especially high school kids. On the broader issue, though, he’s absolutely right, and you can see it from the instantaneous reaction to what he said. Everybody picks and chooses from their holy books, and fundamentalists really hate it when somebody points this out. It undercuts their sales pitch and their special-ness, so they have to react harshly - it’s either that or be reasonable about it. And yes, if they want their views taken seriously, religious people need to ignore the anti-gay bullshit the same way they ignore the other parts Savage mentioned. You can’t abdicate responsibility for your beliefs and actions by saying you got them straight from an ancient text - particularly when you didn’t, and you get them through various schools of thought about that text.

5

I will admit that I’m not hugely familiar with Savage’s career, but what I know of him leads me to believe that he’s pretty much always deliberately offensive, and enjoys being that way. Even though I agree with his opinion almost any time I hear it (which is the case here), I almost always come away thinking “That guy is incredibly obnoxious.” My opinion of him mostly comes from reading his “advice” column, and my impression of him from there is that he basically relishes in the opportunity to be mean for no real reason.

All that said, I’m on his side here. There are high schoolers, not elementary school kids, and aspiring journalists beside. If their sensibilities are so delicate that they wilt the first time they’re confronted with a snide remark from someone who doesn’t even have any power over them, well, good luck to them, I suppose. Hopefully they grow up. I agree that if I were the teacher in charge of any of the students who walked out, I’d mark them down at a minimum.

6

(bolding mine)

While I agree whole-heartedly with what he said, I do think he was being unnecessarily rude and offensive. As you pointed out, they were high school kids… many of them have never had the experience of having deeply-held religious beliefs called into question before, nor (IME) are high schoolers particularly open to critism.

7

Yeah, I think sometimes he should change his message to “It Gets Bitter”, since he clearly got one wedgie too many. He’s up there with Richard Dawkins in people I usually agree with but don’t think I’d want to know.

8

Remember, this is a guy who licked doorknobs in a Republican campaign office with the goal of spreading flu germs. He’s done a lot of good in the world, but he’s not what I’d call classy.

9

I was surprised Savage called them pansies- one, because of the topic and two, because it’s considered a gay slur. On Savage’s behalf, he did offer what seemed to me to be a sincere apology. He should have been better prepared for walk-out as it seems to be a fairly common tactic these days. I bet he won’t get caught off guard by that again.

10

I, for one, am shocked and appaled that the man responsible for associating a presidential candidate’s name with anal leakage, and the name of an influential pastor’s church with having anal sex to protect one’s virginity, would display such a lack of tact.

11

I must be one cranky SOB because if I were Savage, I probably wouldn’t have apologized.

12

I too agreed with him 100%, and I’m also one who prefers to be polite even while disagreeing. But that being said, what is the polite way to tell people the document which represents the basis for their beliefs is utterly wrong, does harm in the world and is utilized with tremendously self-serving hypocrisy to oppress people? Especially when the person making that observation is one of the oppressed?

If the stakes were lower, I might be more inclined to agree that he should have at least made a visible effort to be more tactful. But he’s right. Savage and people like him have been abused - physically and otherwise - often with the Bible as the justification. Efforts to keep gays from marrying prohibits them from enjoying many civil rights. He has a right to be rude. Hell, now I’m thinking he showed a lot of restraint!

13

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Well. . .

You’ve said pretty well what I think. (Better than I would have!) I have to wonder who lined him up as a speaker for this crowd, and what, precisely, they were expecting.

Savage himself has apologized for the “pansy assed” bit here.

I really, really enjoyed his swipe at devout Catholic Calista Gingrich.

He’s absolutely correct that Christians (myself included) cherry pick the Bible. Some parts are just downright unacceptable.

Still, I am genuinely puzzled that people can get so Biblically, New Testamentally riled up about homosexuality when the Lord said nothing on the topic. Nothing! (It was all Paul. Ah, Paul.) But many of these same Christians manage to ignore Christ’s explicit direction in Matthew 19:9.

14

Given the well-known secret proclivities of the worst homophobes, I’d settle for some anti-gay group renaming themselves “It Gets Harder.”

15

I wouldn’t be surprised if in person he is a charming asshole. I like that sort of person, as long as they don’t target ME.

But yea, over offensive.

16

That’s definitely true, and while I think that Savage is a jackass, one positive side effect of that is that he isn’t afraid to call heinous religious beliefs and practices out for what they are.

I will say that I think it’s kind of weird how Savage used the term “pansy.” I know he’s come under fire for using the word “tranny,” too. I don’t have any strong feelings about either word, or Savage using them, but it does seem a little weird to me how quick he is to use LGBT-centric derogatory terms to use against his opponents.

17

People are picking and choosing quotes from the bible to justify cultural prejudice against a minority group. Who cares if he calls them out on it.

18

Thing is, when he called them “pansy-assed” from the podium, isn’t he just encouraging high school kids to bully them further? Obviously their classmates are going to go on and give them shit for it. He may be right…but considering what high school kids are like, he’s not doing any good there.

19

Generally a big fan of Dan Savage. Very pragmatic. He is also right here but unfortunately it will turn into a screaming match. Slow and steady progress is the only way to win this race.

20

Let’s put it this way: if these were college students, I’d be behind him 100%, but this is high school. Kids in high school will go after each other for any little slight. You don’t end bullying in schools by dividing kids further. All they’re going to see is – “See, see! These fags are just out to destroy religion!!! Let’s get them!” That’s not going to help.

Kids that age are generally aren’t going to go, “hmmm, he’s right, the Bible IS bullshit!” No, they’re going to say, “this guy is an ASSHOLE!!!” Consider your audience.