Last week on Slog, Dan Savage called for a post-Prop 8 boycott of Utah.

In response, the Salt Lake Weekly has dropped Savage Love:

[B]oycotting Utah does not boycott the LDS Church. The important work is being done on the streets of Utah, and Dan Savage is nowhere to be found. Imagine Martin Luther King Jr. not marching in Selma.

If you’re a fan of Savage’s column, you won’t find it on our Website any longer. Go to his Website or the Stranger’s, but since Savage hates Utah so much, there’s no point in us playing in his sandbox by sending him a regular check.

In response to the response, the Village Voice cries foul.

UPDATE: I originally reported Dan’s call for a Prop 8 boycott appeared in Savage Love. This was wrong. Dan’s call for a Utah boycott appeared only on Slog. Thanks for reading, SL Weekly!

March against Prop 8 tomorrow.

David Schmader—former weed columnist and Stranger associate editor—is the author of the solo plays Straight and Letter to Axl, which he’s performed in Seattle and across the US. His latest...

41 replies on “Salt Lake Weekly Casts Dan Savage as Martin Luther King Jr., Axes His Column”

  2. Yeah, boycotting Utah is kind of a boneheaded idea. Progressives working in conservative areas to make them more progressive (culturally, politically, etc) need the support of our friends in the coastal cities–campaigns like this which rhetorically construct places like Utah, or “red states” or “small towns” as some kind of “other” that is monolithically hostile to our way of life only make it harder to make those places more cool.

    Have you learned nothing from Barack Obama?

  5. I understand the intent behind a Utah boycott. You don’t want your money to go into the hands of Mormons who are just going to turn around and donate it to an anti-gay cause or give it to their anti-gay church. And there is a much greater chance that that’s going to happen in Utah than in most other places.

    But, I also firmly agree that regular old gay couples and families going to places like Utah is an important way to help make them more progressive over time. We probably all know anti-gay people that have changed their minds once a gay family member or friend comes into the picture.

    So, the problem is, how to go to Utah and ensure that your money doesn’t ultimately end up in the hands of the Mormon church and/or anti-gay marriage folks? I’m not sure there’s a practical solution to this unless you don’t spend any money…

  6. Has the SL Weekly taken on stance on the Prop 8 issue? Since they are in the heart of it, the “Selma,” are they organizing protests, banning Mormon advertisers or writing editorials blasting people who are probably their friends, family and co-workers?

    If they are calling themselves the Selma, then I want to seem some blood on their too clean streets: Bloody Mormon Sunday.

  7. Most likely: the way the newspaper biz is going these days, they needed a convenient excuse to cut costs. No more checks for Savage Love, and they can pretend it’s based on principle.

  8. Boycotting Utah must be a good idea or they wouldn’t be paying so much attention. At least it could cost Mormons as much money as they spent destroying our constitutional rights. Dan’s the man!

  9. How is the SL Weekly dropping Savage’s column any different from Mormon theater director Scott Eckern being boycotted by same-sex marriage proponents? I mean, Savage made a point of raising money for the “No on Prop 8” campaign in his column, which makes him as least as culpable from the other side’s point of view.

  14. And Utah doesn’t equal Mormon, especially not Salt Lake, which has an openly gay state senator and two openly gay state representatives.

  20. I disagree that boycotting Utah is a pointless exercise or that it harms the movement in some way.

    The calls for boycotts are generating huge media attention, and making many people uncomfortable. I’m sorry if you get caught in the middle. The idea that believing mormons can just be reasoned with and if perhaps they see more gay people they’ll change their minds completely misreads how mormons think and make decisions.

    Sundance…time to move on. Will it hurt budding artists? No. There are plenty of great film festivals around the country that can fill the void. I’m not against Sundance, I’m for SIFF.

  22. Yeah, pretty disapointed in the boycott Utah message. I live here, have all my life.

    The original post on slog about mormons being the next coors was an interesting prospect. Something that would take time and consideration to implement.
    (i.e. researching who owns what establishments, spending money in those locations, shunning mormon backed locale.)

    But the firehose method of saying fuck Utah has got me down. Haters may be a term that is beginning to mean specifically gay-haters but why you got to be hating on Utah ? Surely you would think that enlisting Utahns who believe in equal
    rights (like myself, and my family) would be a better way to hurt the church. Also this is the frontier, shouldn’t there be more effort to find the right people here and not writing it off altogether? I mean . . . really ?

    Anyway, I love Savage Love in print, via podcast but would like to feel some love over here to.

  28. Dan Savage is such a divisive prick. Maybe if he would stop for two seconds to think about what he is going to say before he says it, he would realize how absolutely idiotic ALL of his “advice” is.

  29. I like those of you pretending that Utah is completely monolithic and that the Salt Lake Weekly is some kind of Mormon rag. Because you know, nuance is for suckers.

  32. 11- Yes, I admit I checked their website out after posting, but still don’t get a really real idea of their stance because I am not familiar with the SLC culture. I assumed they would have items against Prop 8, but just wanted to be rhetorical. I see a few bland and blasé items against it, but it is nothing like The Stranger.

    A couple of the comments regarding the Prop 8 contributor’s list:
    Just quit it already. You have no power over your family or your friends. (blasé)
    And then
    looks like i’ll be buying and sending my family members and friends to buy at Garff. (a contributor).(asshole with an opinion you would not hear so up front in The Stranger, which is ok)
    And then the bland:
    With each fresh act of vandalism, intimidation and now acts of terror (white powder in envelopes) I lose interest in fighting against Prop 8. These instances are too widespread to place on the shoulders of but a few. If this is how you guys intend to behave, you’re on your own.

    Their Selma reference is bothering me. Are they baiting Dan Savage at the expense of that civil rights movement?

  33. If he’s calling for a boycott, surely they just beat him to the punch. He couldn’t really work with Utah businesses if he was boycotting them, could he?

    I think a general boycott of Utah is asinine. It would make more sense to show the conservative Utahns who donated to 8 that being gay doesn’t make you a minion of Satan, and supporting the liberal businesses in Utah would help that. I lived in Utah for a long time, and Salt Lake is surprisingly liberal. I have friends who are marching against the LDS Church right now in Salt Lake. How would boycotting those Utahns who supported the fight against 8 help?

  34. I can’t speak specifically to the executive decision that was made by my employer to discontinue publishing Savage Love on City Weekly‘s Website–other than saying that it’s beyond ridiculous that some have somehow interpreted this as a signal of support for the fuckheads who funded Proposition 8.

    I am, however, in a position to offer some genuine insight. I hope it will help clear up some (pretty silly) misconceptions:

    Some facts about City Weekly:

    City Weekly has supported Salt Lake’s gay community for 20 years. Its employment policy explicitly forbids discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (despite the fact that it’s still legal in Utah to discriminate against gays.)

    And, yes, it has taken a strong stance against Proposition 8 and its supporters:

    http://cityweekly.blogspot.com/2008/11/l…

    http://cityweekly.blogspot.com/2008/11/h…

    There is no support of Proposition 8 among City Weekly‘s editorial staff, and reactions to its passage have ranged from depression (on my part) to moral outrage (on the part of Editor Holly Mullen).

    As for “banning Mormon advertisers,” which CommonKnowledge suggested, I think that once he or she has a little more understanding of Salt Lake’s profound cultural divide, he or she will realize that City Weekly needn’t bother with such a ban; right-wing Mormons avoid us like the plague. They consider us to be immoral and pornographic and, in 2001, mounted an effort to have us removed from public buildings because of our gay and lesbian personal ads.

    Some facts about Salt Lake City:

    Salt Lake City’s “cultural divide” is not some made-up anthropological conceit; it is a real fact of life here. We are all acutely, neurotically aware of each other’s religious affiliations.

    What many people may not realize is that Salt Lake City lefties know a little bit about boycotts and socially targeted economics–we’ve been doing it since at least the 1970s, to the point where it has now become second-nature. Here’s how it works: You spend your money where it will benefit your friends, and you avoid spending money where it will benefit your enemies.

    Has it succeeded? Brilliantly.

    We have created within Salt Lake City a thriving counterculture and alternative economy that is entirely separate from the mainstream, church-controlled state economy. Many people, communities, businesses and organizations have come together to accomplish this–and City Weekly holds a distinctive place among them.

    It has taken our minority communities a lot of time, effort and organizing to learn how to work together and achieve this economy. And, it is only in recent years that we have begun to more fully enjoy the fruits of these efforts. We are proud of it. It has been a liberating experience. But we still have a long way to go.

    Why a targeted boycott would be more effective than the general “Utah boycott” advocated by Dan Savage:

    Our alternative economic system is starting to work well, but it is fragile and under constant attack by the Mormon power structure and the ultraconservative Legislature. This is why we are so alarmed by talk of a general Utah boycott. Forgive us, but such a boycott, from our friends, is likely to hurt us a hell of a lot more than it could ever hurt the Mormon Church and those who supported Proposition 8.

    I personally favor a targeted boycott–one that will hit Mormon Proposition 8 supporters hard in their wallets. And, given our past experience in such matters, if anybody would like some pointers on exactly where to surgically target such an action, there are lots of people in Salt Lake City who would love to help.

    There’s no reason to throw us to the dogs. Why not work with us instead? We are, after all, on the same side. And those of us who live here naturally have a much more intimate knowledge of our common enemy’s most sensitive, tender and juicy spots.

    Wouldn’t you really rather hit them where it hurts?

    Brandon Burt
    Assistant Managing Editor
    Salt Lake City Weekly

  37. Do the bigots at the Salt Lake Weekly really think that firing a gay columnist is going to make people who are against homophobia, sexism, and racism change their minds about boycotting Utah?

    This is just another reason to boycott Utah as far as I’m concerned. I won’t spend a dime in the Hate State.

  38. Dear Dan if you’re listening,

    Making uninformed decisions like yours to boycott the entire state of Utah only ruins your credibility. Please consider some the comments here.

    libhomo at 37- The Salt Lake Weekly is bigoted toward gays because they fired Dan Savage? If that’s what you believe, you are extremely illinformed and obviously no better than the ignorant Californians who put you in your situation.

  39. You guys need to chill out on SLC Weekly, it’s a progressive paper in a tough fucking place to run a progressive paper. They overreacted for sure with dropping Savage Love but everyone fucks up and boycotting the entire state is fucking stupid. However, I am all for fucking the Mormons. Literally. Or figuratively. Whichever.

  40. Do the bigots at the Salt Lake Weekly really think that firing a gay columnist is going to make people who are against homophobia, sexism, and racism change their minds about boycotting Utah?

    I don’t agree with dropping Dan, either, lib, but do the bigots at Dan Savage Inc. really think that boycotting the most liberal, gay, faggot-friendly activities in Utah is going to make people who are against homos, sex, and equality change their minds about gay marriage?

    What’s next? A boycott of the Pennsylvania electric company to punish the Amish? A boycott of Italy’s gay fashion designers to punish the Pope for his role in Proposition 8? It just makes no fucking sense. Why not go to Utah and fuck a Mormon instead?

  41. Come Join my Facebook Cause! Come to Utah to fight for Gay Rights!
    http://apps.facebook.com/causes/158670?m…

    Boycotting Utah is the lazy person’s way to fight for gay rights, if you were really dedicated to winning equality for gays you’d fight the fight in the hardest of places. Gay people in Utah have none of the rights that Californian have. If we can do it here, we can do it anywhere.

Comments are closed.