Fuck you, you pack of co-opting cowards.
Seriously. You can do a lot more than offer hope. You have the power to make it better. Right now. Suspend enforcement of DADT. Don’t appeal the decision by a federal judge that declared DADT unconstitutional. Stop defending DOMA in court. Keep your promises. Make it better. And if you’re not going to keep your promises or do what you can to make it better, White House, then you could at least have the simple human decency to shut the fuck up.
State-sanctioned discrimination against LGBT people legitimizes the kind of anti-gay attitudes and beliefs that lead directly to anti-gay bullying at the ballot box and anti-gay bullying in schools. You can do more. Enough with the speeches. Enough with the pretty words—particularly the lifted ones.
Fuck you.
I know I’m getting tired of defending him.
Did I miss it, or did they title their piece “It Gets Better,” and say it at the end, but not link to the project anywhere?
Where were all these nice words before the DADT vote?
Well, since Obama has started to protect his bullshit brand, I think you should too. Although I’m sure going up against them in court to dispute a trademark is not an option, constantly subverting their lies in the media is most definitely a welcome response.
I’d be exactly that pissed off too.
I realize I’m picking nits here, but their wording stumps me.. The phrase “In recent months, there have been far too many LGBT youth who have faced bullying and harassment..” brought me to a full stop.
Far too many? Really? Is that what they really meant to say? The implication being, of course, that a few queer kids bullied here and there is acceptable, but that lately there have been ‘far too many’??
Again, I realize I’m focusing on semantics, but, uh, .. wow….
That is just some unacceptable bullshit any way you look at it. Get the fuck back to work, White House flacks. Jesus H. Christ.
Jesus, people – and Dan – get a grip. Having your project mentioned on the friggin’ White House web site is a BIG fucking deal. It’s a huge compliment, not a rip off.
Leverage this great coup to raise your story to even greater visibility.
Just adding my support. They need to stop paying lip service and bloody well DO SOMETHING.
#7, it’s not a generally positive interaction if I punch you in the face, then give you a stick of gum, right? Same thing here.
@7 They didn’t mention the project (if you click on the link to the source), they just took the title, and made no mention of the project anywhere. Back in the dark ages when I was in school, we called that plagiarism.
@9 – It’s more like an abusive relationship where I say I’d really like to stop hitting you–the fact that I’m hitting you really breaks my heart–but to simply stop hitting you doesn’t address the systematic problems that lead to me hitting you in the first place, and we’re looking for a long-term solution to this problem, not a temporary fix. I’m working on not hitting you, you just have to be patient and hold out hope. In fact, I’m currently conducting a study to see how the neighbors would react if I stopped hitting you. It should be done by the end of this year, probably.
#7, they didn’t mention the project (at least not in the linked speech). They just appropriated the name.
you get a grip… children are killing themselves – and not a peep out of this White House about the hate that is driving it – that is “a BIG fucking deal”
Queer Summits Not Beer Summits !
Thank You Dan
and Dan Savage,
thank you, thank you for all your work on the Trevor Project and It Gets Better !
Brian Bond’s been around the block a few dozen times – I wonder if he decided to use that phrase for his blog post title as a deliberate titty-twister.
7 – yeah be grateful to the WH again for doing all the spectacular work they’ve been doing! For dogmatically pursuing mediocre incrementalism while your most loyal constituencies are suffering! Get a grip people, we have to buck up.
@ 7 With friends like these…
I saw this early today and tweeted it around 12:30. I think the exact wording I used was co-opting. Couldn’t agree more with you on this one Dan!
@11 – That is probably the saddest and truest analogy I have seen in a long time. I posted it to my Facebook profile. Unlike the White House, however, I cited you.
@11 – very good analogy. Unfortunately it applies to several other areas besides LGBT rights: torture, accountability for the financial industry, energy independence, health care reform etc.
Silvio Levy
@ 11 – … while the neighbours have been screaming “stop hitting him” all along.
I saw this early today and tweeted it around 12:30. I think the exact wording I used was co-opting. Couldn’t agree more with you on this one Dan!
Oh come on, it’s not like they’re going to lose the House this November and you’ll be stuck with the current situation for the next 6 years while the Dems run in panic from LGBT DADT stuff, right?
oh. wait.
I am more than a little irritated with our president’s lack of moral courage; one oligarch or another, I wonder if it truly makes any difference. The reforms made in the New Deal Era have more or less been entirely rolled back, even long before I was of voting age.
Watch are more and more advances in communication, ironically, serve to further centralize power and authority in the hands of a very small few, now having the capacity to mold and moderate ever-larger populations; it seems it is ever harder to dissent. Long-gone, I suppose, is the hope that the personal computer would make the average worker more powerful than a CEO.
What a shame! Dan gets a shout-out from the White House – the White House – and instead of accepting the compliment and using it to help get his message out, his response is “fuck you.”
Of course the White House doesn’t link to the actual project. Half of America thinks gayness is evil, and that all of us are going to hell. The President is not going to link to a site that has 12 year-old kids advocating homosexuality, especially three weeks before an election.
But how awesome that they gave the shout-out, even if they couldn’t bring themselves to give a link! It’s a shame Dan is choosing to pass up such a golden opportunity.
#11 = Brilliant summation.
No, Dan Savage, Fuck You. As a volunteer with a Seattle-based gay rights group I am out in the field every weekend canvassing door-to door in places like Bellevue and Federal Way for Democratic candidates who have taken tough votes in support of our issues because it was the right thing to do. Fuck you, because everytime you tear down the president you demoralize the Democratic base and literally drive down the progressive vote and ensure the election of every retrograde, savagely anti-gay, tea-bagging wingnut out there. Fuck you, for having the nerve to think you speak for me. Fuck you for making a difficult job more difficult than it already is. I don’t know when you self-appointed yourself the leader of all that is gay in America but until you’re ready to stand for election or actively work with somebody who is, you’re just another media fame-whore and the only thing that distinguishes you from someone like Ann Coulter is that she throws her hate-bombs from the right and you throw yours from somewhere inside your capacious and worn-out ass. Fuck you.
28 – Ah, Dan Savage and the Left is responsible for depressing the base and not Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress? I’d like to see a credible argument for that. Haven’t yet.
Dear 28: fuck you and your self-righteous babbling. You’re part of the problem, not the solution. Canvassing for candidates that aren’t going to improve anything. If anything you’re making it worse, trying to get people elected who won’t hold their promises and who vvote for measures that destroy the United States.
Dan “demoralizes the Democratic base?”
99.999999% who haven’t heard of him?
Try the White House and Obama administration who demoralize the Democratic base over and over and over and over again, on whatever issue is vitally important to them or their lives.
Name an issue, any issue: and you have Democratic base who care about that issue who are aware they’ve been fucked over by this administration and the Democrats in Congress.
Either through inaction, or acting precisely opposite to campaign promises, no less what the base wants and needs, often desperately.
I’ve been voting Democratic for the last 40 years and will do so again this fall, but only because the Republicans are and always have been crazy.
I’m not your problem, the enthusiam gap among Democrats which has been created wholely by the Democrats now in office.
I give you credit for going out and trying to get those people to the voting booth — but the President hasn’t been helping you.
Oh and Fuck You to the White House and the Democrats in office for fucking over the base, whenever they had the chance, and now trying to blame us for our lack of interest in keeping these fuckers in office.
@28: Kiss my butt. I voted for the best Republican president we’ve had since Eisenhower in 2008. Unfortunately, he ran as a Democrat. When the Democrats can actually front candidates that represent my beliefs (and for the record, I’m straight as an arrow but don’t give a shit if Johnny marries Jimmy) then I’ll be excited. In the mean time, keep pandering to the hate-filled drooling idiots that make up the right – they’ll never come back, they’re too pissed off that we stopped them from hanging black people.
@28 You lost me at demoralizing the Democratic base. Dan is not demoralizing what hasn’t already been demoralized by the Democratic party itself. When the Democratic party stops with the whole shtick of “Hey, we love you gays…we really do…but we’re not gonna stand up for your civil rights…thanks for the money and votes tho! What’s wrong? You mad bro?” and actually DO what they fucking promise to do…then perhaps your job would be easier. Stop blaming the symptoms and go after the fucking cause…the collective ball sack that is the Democratic Party.
@ 26 – Well if the White House does not actually give kudos to those who actually do something, then the WH should have the decency not to co-opt a notion that’s proven quite popular lately, unlike the government.
It’s not a golden opportunty, it’s just an instance of shameless opportunistic misrepresentation.
But frankly, why should we care? The IGB project’s page is probably going to get more hits today than that pathetic page on the WH site ever will.
You know what?
40 percent turnout for the vote for our state is pretty pitiful.
Cause they do twice that in Canada on election day.
Using pencils and paper.
Face it, we suck.
#28–It’s not Dan Savage’s fault that the Democrats haven’t done anything. I think you’re blaming the wrong person here. Dan is a citizen who was promised something by politicians he elected–and donated to–and he hasn’t gotten those promises. He has a responsibility to call them on it, loudly.
Also, BITCHES STOLE DAN’S CATCHPHRASE!! The “It Gets Better” project obviously came straight from Dan’s heart, and his message resonated with gay teenagers, and now the party decides to steal his sincere words of sympathy and encouragement to get more votes?
Despicable.
@ 28 – I’d say your head is “somewhere inside your capacious and worn-out ass”. Please pull it out and have a look a the real world.
@26 Actually, at first it just said “fuck you,” so I don’t think it was in reference to not being credited. I believe it was in reference to the jack-shit effort the Obama administration has put forth regarding LGBT issues, after claiming “fierce advocacy.”
@28 I’m a registered democrat, I’ve already voted by absentee ballot, and I’m completely disappointed by Obama’s spinelessness. I’m glad you’re out there motivating democrats, and I’m glad Dan’s dropping f-bombs on the president. They aren’t mutually exclusive endeavors. The president isn’t doing the job I elected him to do (not all of it anyway), and call me impatient, call me unrealistic, but I DO want his feet held to the fire. I would hope democrats aren’t such spineless creatures themselves that a pissed-off editorial makes them throw up their hands and say, “Oh the hell with it, I just won’t vote.”
Yes, Dan, I’m shocked–SHOCKED–Barack is not the Hawaiian Harvey Milk we all expected. Obamessiah has let you down. Shall we all just pout and see how much we get done after a Republican bloodbath in November? Yeah–because then we can pat ourselves on the back and say “see, tolja so” and see how many people we attract to the movement–or the polls–to get things done. No, we’d rather be Right.
You undercut your own very-admirable (and optimistic) “It Gets Better” campaign by encouraging cynical apathy and issuing complaints without marching orders for the thousands who are listening to you. Want those bills passed? Tell folks how to make that happen instead of undercutting those, imperfect as they are, who are actually sponsoring and trying to pass these bills. Stop aiding and abetting the homophobic GOP. A whole lot of “fuck yous” isn’t going to pass bills, Dan. It never has.
And spare me the inevitable “drunk on the Kool-Aid” metaphors when you are cheerleading a political-perfectionist Jonestown. You can borrow my pom-poms–I’m too busy working on motivating voters and passing actual legislation.
Or better yet, Dan. Run for office, get elected, and find out what why they call Politics “The Art of the Possible” not the Fast Track to Gaytopia.
@ 28: I’ve never claimed to speak for tools, fools, or useful idiots.
@ 39 – Well a whole lot of Democrats in the House don’t seem to be passing those bills either, so we should be grateful that at least someone is calling them on their lies and bullshit.
@38 I’m voting tonight by absentee and would no matter what Dan says in an editorial or how tightly the issue makes some clutch their pearls.
But I’ve told the DCCC and DSCC to stop calling me until DADT repeal passes. (Until them I give directly to campaigns whose messages I can agree with.) I don’t think the national orgs deserve my support while they’re so clearly unwilling–not unable, unwilling–to Do the Right Thing.
And I’m a hopelessly straight male pissed off at DADT, among thirty-‘leven other things.
No, Dan, you just simply choose to be one. Why don’t you just stick to the felching advise and making up deservedly offensive definitions for the names of people like Rick Santorum. You’ll have plenty of targets for the latter enterprise after November, no thanks to you.
Obama’s Art of the Possible includes lying through his teeth at the electorate and then going after the old and sick by appointing almost exclusively those who want to gut the Social Security safety net to the so-called “Deficit Commission.”
Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.
And let’s hear it for the man who kept Gitmo open — yeah, he made that possible.
Also: everybody on Social Security is aware they’ve received no cost of living increase for two years.
Senior citizens who vote.
However, it was possible for the Obama administration to make sure the bankers got their bonuses, and to give a speech for more off-shore drilling a month before the Gulf was destroyed.
Here’s something else possible, Obama won’t do: Obama could stop gays and lesbians being cashiered out of the military with a stroke of the pen.
But he hasn’t and he won’t.
Obama’s Art of the Possible, only goes one way: the possibilty of screwing over the Democratic base.
@ 43 – Yeah, the Dems are gonna lose because of Dan. NOT! They’re gonna lose because of what Dan and a lot of other people denounce: their hypocrisy (among numerous other things).
You’re just too naive for words.
@41– A whole lot of Democrats ARE voting FOR them, Ricardo, and a few Democrats–and ALL the Republicans–are voting NO. So by all means protest the hell out of those who aren’t, but don’t toss the YES votes into the fire with the BlueDog idiots voting no.
Oh and as for Obama’s supposed skill with the Art of the Possible deal making, it’s another lie:
http://www.americablog.com/2010/10/how-c…
@43 I’m disgusted with Obama and the Democrats because of what they’ve done with their power. Most progressives are smart enough to be pissed whether or not Dan Savage agrees with us.
You’re really just coming off like a whiny contrarian.
Ugh, this is just tribal. “We need our side to win guys! (Principles and promises be damned.)” Well our side sold us out 43. Time to get past the stage of denial. With supermajorities and a Democratic president, those fierce advocates for change took the mantle of Republicans circa 1970s. Are they going to magically about-face at some point in the next 6 years if we give them a pass?
@5 “In recent months, there have been far too many LGBT youth who have faced bullying and harassment..”
Honey, tell me about it. What got me is the ‘In recent months’ bit. In recent months? Try decades or centuries. Baby Jesus has made it OK to torture and murder gay folks since they translated the Bible to English, and the bitch says: ‘In recent months?!’ Good fucking fuck.
You’ve got guys in their sixties on the it get’s better project talking about being assaulted in high-school for their perceived sexuality. If their victims weren’t gay, these bullies would be in jail for the shit they pull.