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Sniff... Ha ha ha
I'm looking forward to seeing the Marriage Equality debate. I'm totally stoked that I managed to get a ticket to the hottest show in town.
Pinning him down on where exactly he stands on this would go a long way toward showing people how extreme his views are.
Keep up the good work.
All right. Fair enough, Santorum was out-of-line with his comments. Thanks for clarifying. Still, engagement needs to be civil in all discourse on any issue if we're ever going to get anywhere.
I agree. Let's all put Santorum behind us.
Dan: Please keep running your mouth, keyboard, video cameras, whatever it takes to get the message out there that sexual freedom and tolerance is a good thing, a right we all should enjoy.
In their insane crusade to live in a country where gay kids aren't mocked, beaten or driven to suicide, RADICAL GAY-SURGENTS terrorize the rest of the god-fearing population with "PC nonsense" and "totalitarian[ism]."
ENOUGH.
Mark is right, we need to all agree we've reached an acceptable level of mockery, the number of beatings is steady, and the rate of suicides is looking good!
If Santorum gains traction on the slippery floor of politics, someone really ought to look into making FUDGE PAC a real force for opposition. It drives me nuts to hear stories about him that don't mention his most extreme positions.
The NYT article states: "in which he was discussing marriage and mentioned homosexuality, saying it is not 'man on boy, man on dog'," which is (intentionally?) misleading with regards to the point Santorum was trying to make. Was that what irked you about Leibovich's article?
You seem to have (somewhat) clarified the statement by bracketing the word "marriage" in your citation...in a further attempt to clarify things...but I would say that you were not entirely successful in addressing your qualms with Leibovich.
Hmmm... Just as a matter of interest, have you posted it to the Official Rick Santorum website, so they might see it?
Why would you plan on getting anywhere with Santorum and the people who lap up his nasty spew?
including the Obama Justice department.
But Danny has a boner only for Rick.
For whatever reason somewhere sometime Rick totally got under Danny's skin and our prickly little Danny has and will NEVER get over it....
You fanboys can whoop it up and egg Danny on but it is irrational behavior, you know it but are too gutless to acknowledge it.
If/as Danny's whole santorum obsession gets scrutinized in the searing light of day by people who are not slavish asslicking fans of Danny our little hero will not come off well.
Danny is obsessed with Rick.
Danny 'is up for whipping up some santorum IN Santorum!' yukyukyuk
Danny is an unhinged deranged stalker where Rick is concerned.
Maybe grandpa5280 could use his close personal relationship with Danny to suggest counseling.....
oh if only, Danny.
You can call Asshole and Bigot and Homophobe and whine to have those who disagree with you banned from appearing on TV to present their views and who can wish on national TV that Republicans were dead but what you never do is stoop to respectfully engage and argue with politicians who disagree with me about marriage equality and choice.
Fish gotta swim,
birds gotta fly.
Danny's gotta Asshole.....
You know,
that is EXACTLY what we have noticed about
Our Little Danny.
How he can and does respectfully engage and argue with people who disagree with him about marriage equality and choice for polygamists.
One could fill several volumes with Danny's thoughtful responses to those who point out that his positions on marriage 'equality' and poly are contradictory hypocritical HorseShit.
"Still, engagement needs to be civil in all discourse on any issue if we're ever going to get anywhere. "
All discourse? No, no it doesn't. Historically, what's worked well is to have some discourse where the people who have been being badly hurt express their outrage about that, and some discourse where people are politely persuasive. And also the historically-oppressed people spending time raising money and getting some genuine power. It's a combination of approaches, because no one approach will actually convince a majority. Some people are persuaded by rational argument, some by anger, some by tears, some by their own best interest.
Civil discourse is one useful means, but only one-- without the outrage, very little actually gets done.
In other words, go Dan!
And @28 - it did take a long time for the troll to arrive, didn't it. I wonder if he has found another 'crush' to stalk the way he stalks Dan?
Don't.
Stop.
These people lie without an conscience. You not only have a mastery of the issues at hand, but the ability to disseminate them to the rest of us in a manner that is both informative but not condescending. It's a gift. To all of us.
We no longer have to "agree to disagree" with our enemies. And make no mistake, that is exactly what they are. They aren't simply people with whom we have a healthy difference of opinion. They would ship us all off to a gulag or worse given their "druthers".
Thanks, again.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/connelly/…
I actually wouldn't mind if Mr Santorum actually won the nomination, since the polls show he'd lose to Obama.
No, sometimes discourse has to become a bit ugly.
One of the primary benefits that I see of hammering Santorum on this is the example that it sets for the other Republicans in politics. What this is saying to them is that, no, we will not allow you to continue to use the LGBT community or other minority groups as your bogeyman, as your punching bag. If you try, we will make things very, very uncomfortable for you. And this would not happen with simple strenuous objecting.
http://theweek.com/article/index/223041/…
Constitutional and practical considerations aside, I just want him to clarify what he would do if it were up to him. Would he advocate revoking the license of a doctor who performed elective surgical sterilization? Locking a woman up for crafting her own IUD? Citing a guy for soaking his balls in ice water?
Should a video of a man pulling out at the last second and blowing his load on a woman's torso be considered evidence of a crime?
Contraception is a continuum of tactics ranging from abstinence to abortion. We need to know where on that continuum Santorum would draw the line, regardless of what he thinks is possible. Because if he picks enough Supreme Court justices, total theocracy isn't out of the question.
That's why we keep coming back.
1. (Non-Christian Religions / Judaism) Bible another term for the holy of holies
2. Often facetious an especially private place
The obvious places where santorum is whipped up...
I mean, Santorum.
No, I had it right the first time.
Until ONE fundy xtian has suffered what every gay, lesbian, or transgendered American has by virtue of being who they are in this Puritan society, then I call BS on civility.
Happy to hit every Santorum.com link until Frothy goes down the toilet he belongs in.
Rick didn't understand that the little two-letter word "up" makes a crucial difference. Islamic terrorists love blowing things up.
Give em hell Dan and all other brave people in the US putting these people down a peg or two. Your fantastic.
@9 Fuck off. Just fuck off. Dont force people to behave civil when they are being pissed on. Your the personality that sells out others, a social movement scab, who thinks that if you just scrape the ground low enough you will get what you want. If you just bow to them and let them spit you in the face you might get some crumbs. Fuck off.
We won rights by fighting for them and the Stonewall Riot started it not just for the LGBT movement but also internationally. Those people who threw bricks at the cops got more done than you ever have and not just for fags, lesbians, bi's and transpeople in the US but in Europe too.
So fuck off. Your argumentation for obedience and back-stabbing pisses not just on the LGBT movements in YOUR country but mine and others too. So fuck off. I cant say that enough, you scab.
Yuck. And well done. (Picture and post).
I'll keep this civil. I must. The only "other" way would be uncivil thus negating any chance of discourse at least with yours truly. This reminds me of Clausewitz's definition of war as "negotiation by another means". At the end of the day, I'll remain, civil. I'm not "advocacy" oriented. Never have been. Probably never will be. Just isn't my style.
I mentioned that Santorum was wrong (out-of-line) in what he said. He's held accountable for that. Still, what he said is a far cry from promoting laws against homosexual activity or worse, harming or murdering a person because of his or her sexual orientation (I vividly recall the shock & horror of the murder of Matthew Shepard).
That said, I'll tweak what Gen. Patton once remarked "I'm not willing to die for a cause. Let the other son-of-a-bitch die for his". If you want to go after Santorum, be my guest. I just think wit, intelligence and civility are necessary in order to so. Otherwise, it becomes a war and the masses may not like that means. The other side has their warriors and resources too.
@56, please put down the cup of "fuck off" you've been drinking. It is rendering you unstable. I highly recommend a cup of hot chocolate with some schnapps at this time of year. It gets chilly. And, remember stay classy.
Santorum absolutely does "[promote] laws against homosexual activity." Check out this interview with the Associated Press in 2003, where he says that he's strongly opposed to the repeal of sodomy laws:
http://equalitymatters.org/factcheck/201…
And what do you mean that this "becomes" a war? The fight for gay rights has been a war for the last fifty years, and a lot of people have died along the way. The fact that we're starting to win is not a reason to suddenly back off.
What? What? We need a whole new class of Dan Savage jokes to describe just how gay he is now that he's the opposite of Chuck Norris.
So what is the Vatican waiting for, in order to send him his "sorry but you've embarrassed us enough" little card ? Do I have to believe that the same Vatican that has no problems whatsoever with the Mayor of Paris being proudly gay - that same Vatican endorses somewhere else a politician whose mind is strictly set on the anuses of his male constituents and on the uteruses of his female ones, and who is decided to do what it takes to control everything that ever comes close to them ?
Speak up, Vatican ! Do you endorse the Frothy Mix Dick or don't you ?
And Dick Frothy Mix. If he's a true Roman Catholic he must be against the death sentence. Can't anybody get him to give a very clear public statement about his take on the death sentence, that will either incense the Vatican, or incense the Republicans ?
You're telling Dan to keep things civil? Really? Really? Compared to how villified LGBT persons are by Santorum and his cronies, he is being civilized. Dan made Santorum a joke. Dan did not propose on firing Santorum from his job unfairly (voting against him, yes), lynching him, driving him from his home, putting him in jail, sending him to a death camp, separating him from his spouse, or taking his children away and putting them in an orphanage. Santorum and Company would happily do that to Dan and his family. Dan is nothing but civilized compared to the gender-normative enforcers of the Religious Reich.
p.s. Why don't you decry the Republicans and their extremely successful venomous propaganda? Oh, yes, because you're probably a supporter and their negative, false villification of the left is okay. Negative campaigning only stops being okay when it's aimed at your party, amirite?
http://www.cam4.com/ricksantorum
very telling headline.
Santorum is not the only public figure to advocate the positions Danny accuses him of advocating.
Not by far.....
But "Only Santorum Has Gotten the "Santorum" Treatment".
Why is that, Slog?
Has Danny confessed a desire to "whip up some santorum IN " any other politician?
Our Danny has a personal obsession with Rick.
Like a pig rooting for truffles....
everyone was pretty civil;
Danny's strawman of banning contraception was dismissed neatly by Mitt {making George S. (whom we like...) look kind of nutty in the process};
the field calmly explained why they oppose homosexual marriage and will seek to amend the US Constitution to ban it (joining the voters in 30+ states who have already done so....);
Huntsman is a freak irrelevance and his campaign expires in 38 hours;
Newt grumbled but didn't land a glove on Mitt-
it's starting to look like a Romney-Santorum ticket that will have broad center-right appeal and leave Danny sputtering...
it makes one wonder.....
Next January when America inaugurates a Mormon and a Catholic who are committed to making the US Constitution Pro-Life and Pro-Family will Danny still be crowing "We're Winning!"?
I think in part due to Dan's horrified outrage in the form of spreadingsantorum so many people who were otherwise simply thinking Rick was stupid, actually began to realize he went way beyond stupid, he was a cruel and sanctimonious prick. It's through stuff like spreadingsantorum that actual change in group consciousness begins to occur. And living as I do smack-dab in upper-middle-America, I've heard a lot of wry tongue-clucking about spreading santorum, but nobody (not even any really conservative people I know) have said anything close to "Rick didn't deserve that" - because instinctively people get the basic idea of karma. Which is why sometimes a wise teacher turns away when the bully on the playground gets his/her comeuppance. Because it's necessary to the greater good.
"You're in a group going out to dinner. One side wants Italian, the other wants anthrax & metal shavings. How is civil discourse possible w/ people like that? "
Snerk. Really well said. Thank you.
I think it's worth reading carefully and debating, if only to understand ourselves why we hold the views we do. The most important idea in it, to my mind, is the rejection of autonomy in favor of the "societal good." There's also the idea that it is base and unwise to hold the fulfillment of desire as paramount in living life. Both ideas directly contradict what Dan argues in almost everything he writes about gay rights.
If you somehow think that Dan Savage's definition of Santorum makes him "uncivil" when he's devoted his life to making reasoned and compassioned and evidenced based arguments for more a more tolerant and just society, then you either have poor critical thinking skills or Stolkholm syndrome.
It reminds me of battered wives who rally around their husbands when others call him out for being an abuser.
I have yet to hear someone in the "civility police" camp who didn't reveal that they deeply deeply fear the truthtelling of the left by refusing to acknowledge that it's the extreme right that has a monopoly on incivility. Ya know, the incivility that fucking matters.
I also deeply resent this weak shit about not being able to be passionate, funny, vulgar and sharp in language without somehow being "as bad as they are." "I hear what you're saying; I just don't like the way you're saying it." Fuck you! I despise such rank cowardice.
Also, Islamic or Islamist? Or both?
Hate speech like Santorum's does incite to violence and does try to justify discriminating laws. Hate speech has real life consequences for the targets of hatred. By definition, no effective civil discourse is possible with those who use these fascist tactics to rouse up totalitarian hatemongers in order to further their career in politics. We should all consider ourselves lucky that Dan and his readers managed to handle this situation with humor.
Too much lead in the paint of a lot of babies rooms where you folks grew up, I guess.
Death camps? Hate speech (does wishing all republicans were "fucking dead"count?) Incitement to violence or murder? War?
And with all this overheated irrational rhetoric all these evils are the province of the right? Do you even understand how ironic that sounds?
You folks really need to take the medications you've been prescribed. Or stop taking that stuff you weren't. One or the other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_…
Go read. See what you think. If it's not a war, then a whole lot of us have died as part of... what?
No joke...he's just an ass.
"You're in a group going out to dinner. One side wants Italian, the other wants anthrax & metal shavings. How is civil discourse possible w/ people like that? "
Actually, to be more accurate as a metaphor, it would be more like "You're in a group going out to dinner. One side wants Italian, the other wants themselves to have Italian and everyone else to have anthrax & metal shavings, and still split the bill equally. How is civil discourse possible w/ people like that? "
The problem is that the GOP sets the standards for "civil" in the media, the Republicans get to hide behind their horrible frontgroups, and Obama has to smile and laugh and if he ever gets CLOSE to anything less when confronted with hate and bigotry, you'll see a thousand opinion pieces about the ANGRY black guy and screeds about his wife and kids.
Fuck being "civil" by their terms.
Every death you cite is sad. Every one is the loss of a son or daughter, loved one or companion and should be mourned. Gay or straight, male or female murder is always wrong and always for the same reasons.
Every physical assault is an attack on that person and civil order generally, which is why we call it criminal. The fact of the attack is the only relevant issue. What motivated it, except for purposes of proving guilt in court, isn't.
The very notion of a 'hate crime' flies in the face of our notion of equality. It sets crime with one motive at a higher punitive value than crime with another. It places one class of victim at a higher value than all others. It has nothing to do with the American jurisprudential system as it ought to be.
Yes, gays and lesbians and all the other fine distinctions incorporated in the LBGTQRSTUVWXYZetc movement have been villified on occasion. They've had their feelings hurt. Sorry, but the price of a decision to embrace a lifestyle at odds with your culture is sometimes villification and hurt feelings. One of two things is true. You get more out of your choice to embrace this lifestyle than it costs socially and you should retain your choice. Or you don't, and you should make another choice. Either way it's your call and your issue, not that of your society at large.
To say that this 100 or so deaths, the silly and fundamentally unjust notion of hate crimes, and the social price anyone would pay for a controversial lifestyle choice is a war is hyperbolic at best, hysterical or dishonest at worst.
Your desire for special rights for straights is far more of a concern. Once you stop spewing venom and indecencies, we'll be able to work together to focus on hate crimes.
Hate crimes come from hate, and you're in no rush to shut the fuck up.
Jews who kept the Jewish lifestyle in Europe back in the day were almost universally persecuted because their lifestyle was in conflict with the culture of the majority. Should they have converted to your precious Christianity?
You're claiming that it's the responsibility of everyone not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the majority, and it's their own damn fault if they get persecuted. By your logic, many blacks who were beaten or murdered in the South were at fault because they insisted on choosing the "let the sun set on you in this town" lifestyle.
We shouldn't need hate crime laws. But the sad truth is that we do.
That's like saying prosecutors shouldn't differentiate between first degree murder, second degree murder, and manslaughter. Extenuating circumstances make crimes different from one another, and are punished accordingly.
Equality applies to every person before the law, but not to the crimes they commit.
No one rights with such enormous passion who does not have feelings.... the lady, I fear, dost protest to much. One has to wonder if there is not a specific dab of santorum he is fantasizing about....
The arguments given here are formidable. It's a war, there have been casualties, the people on the other side are never going to be reasonable, we should stop trying to convince them with rational arguments. Limbaugh? Beck? Serioiusly?
And yet one wonders: how is it that the war is being won? Do people really think that it's the aggressive activists shouting angry things that make this happen? Is this what really convinces people -- not the party base or rank-and-file, but the ones who really are able to evolve beyond their current level of understanding?
I think every person who realized they have at least one gay friend and thought honestly about the implications for his/her worldview did his/her little part in the changes; and they add up to something more important than those stones thrown at policemen in Stonewall. Because stones can be thrown back, and those throwing them, no matter how justified they are, can be cast in a bad light unless the slowly changing majority changes sufficiently fast. Do you think the Warsaw Ghetto heroes would be called 'heroes' if Hitler had won the war and the Nazi worldview became the default one?
Here you're making the argument that hate laws are OK because they protect everybody equally -- it's just that it's less likely crimes against straight white males will be committed because the attacker hates straight white males in general.
Elsewhere, however, you argued that taxes on yarmulkes were taxes on Jews -- even though in principle they applied equally to everybody, of course Jews would be almost entire target group for this tax, since it's very unlikely (though not impossible) that non-Jews would want to buy yarmulkes.
Isn't there a problem here?
(I suppose an answer could be sketched along the lines of the idea that a tax on yarmulkes preferentially victimizes Jews, since it takes something -- money -- away from them, whereas hate crime laws don't victimize anyone, they just give more to what would anyway be given, i.e., a condemnation of one's attackers. But since 'victimizing' is often a relative term -- people who got less than others might claim they were victimized ['why did his attacker get a worse verdict than my attacker? only because he's black and I'm white? that's unfair! I'm a victim!'] -- it's also not difficult to see how a counter-argument could be built.)
What exactly is the need for hate crime laws, in your opinion? Is it to give hate crimes worse punishments than they would otherwise get (i.e., 'aggravating circumstances'), so as to send a message against hate and therefore discourage it?
were you born gay and made a choice to embrace heterosexuality so you wouldn't be at "odds" with your culture?
I have some reservations about Hate Crime Laws myself. I would think that the reason is simply to deter hate crimes. But, I'm not sure of that effectiveness. (it's difficult if not impossible to prove a negative - do Hate Crime Laws lower the incidence of hate crimes?). On the other hand from my understanding, it is impossible to outlaw Hate Speech at least under the First amendment. So, we have a conundrum. People can say whatever they damn well please as long as the delivery is civil. However, they cannot DO whatever they damn well please.
I find it funny that their revulsion from hate crime laws comes from the assumption that they're *so* effective, that they might positively affect the public opinion of any such marginalized person.
I'm also curious about how many of those assholes dislike "hate crime" legislation but support zero-tolerance measures in schools, towards drug use and crime, etc.
"I'm not sure hate law crimes are at all effective in influencing public opinion positively"
The main individuals they make angry are the ones who passively endorse violence against marginalized people. Once they express concern for protecting gays and other minorities and fund support groups properly, I'll be amenable to retiring these far from perfect non-solutions.
It certainly doesn't worsen the problem.