I think Perkins's shit was so ridiculous I doubt it does anything but make his position look more absurd. You need to get out there Dan.

What a shitty move on their part. I hope the benefit to WaPo readers of that very good livechat outweighed any harm that old bitch Perkins' tired old lines may have done.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry that the Washington Post felt that in order to achieve balance, they needed to include the views of proponents of gay teen suicide.

It's the fucking WaPo - what did you expect?

You were too nice there Dan with your Dear Washington Post. I'm not sure I could have been that civil. What a bunch of bigoted liars.

WaPo = Asshats.

And people wonder why print journalism is in jeopardy. The idea that "fairness" requires the airing of idiocy is the tiredest, most miserable convention of editorial policy.

A query: when the holocaust museum opened in DC, did the post open up their pages to skinheads?

@2 - I'm sure Perkins didn't win anybody over with his screed, but the Post sure damaged whatever credibility as journalists they had before that. Hard to believe it's the same paper that broke the Watergate scandal.

So fucking pissed that I actually called the WaPo ombudsman and left a vm. I've never done that before but I'm going to make a point to complain every time I see a mainstream media outlet give that bigoted asshole a platform. NOT ACCEPTABLE. BTW: 202-334-7582.

I guess next MLK day they'll publish a column from the KKK. After all, civil rights for blacks is a two sided issue...

@9, watching them go so downhill for such a long time has been painful for this old girl, lemme tell ya. Ezra Klein's kind of cute, but that only goes so far...

Aardvark could be right. Looking at the comments, it doesn't look like Perkins made many friends.

Dan, I hope you actually wrote to the editor of the Washington Post. For anyone else that wants to send an email to the editor, it's letters@washpost.com.

The email for feedback about articles or other content is interactivity@washingtonpost.com.

The Ombudsman is ombudsman@washpost.com.

The right wing always uses hate to stir up their sick fucking supporters during an election.

Well, let me see... we've got Dan Savage here, trying to do something to prevent an epidemic of gay teen suicides. Surely we need someone for balance, you know, who thinks gay kids killing themselves is a good idea.

Seriously? WA Post?

Sure, I expect this level of critique from Faux News. But are you so deadened that you think a story like this needs balance from Tony Perkins? And have you fired every fact checker on your staff?

Truly, real journalism is dead, at least at WA Post.

@ 22 It's extremely naive (read: stupid) to think that because a nation is generally tolerant, everyone in it is.

I'm going to put on my paranoid tinfoil hat for this one, but a lot of people in the comments section of that article mention that the washington post is close to being shut down or some such thing, do you suppose ol stony jerkins could have paid his way into that article?

@24: It's a problem if the most powerful and outspoken members of a large demographic are intolerant. There's a reason that skinheads are generally seen as racist. There's a reason that Christians are generally seen as homophobic.

Ah the old hatred of hatred makes you a bigot canard. I thought that one was dead.

One curious thing about the study Mr Perkins linked to and that I don't see anybody mentioning is that Mr Perkins used it to compare apples to oranges.

See, all the study concludes is that gay people are more likely to have psychological problems than straight people IN THE NETHERLANDS. Well, this is not surprising; even though homosexuals fare better there than in America, the Netherlands are not perfect either. I know -- I live there, and I speak Dutch: the language has many terms meant to offend homosexuals. So, even though bullying gay people for being gay happens less often here than in America, it still does. I'll bet this explains the difference between gay and straight people with psychological problems.

What Mr Perkins should have done -- and what I haven't seen anybody do thus far -- is compare the results of this study with those of other studies in other places. Do gay people in the Netherlands have problems MORE or LESS often than gay people in America? My bet is that the stats would show gay people in the Netherlands have FEWER problems and commit suicide LESS often than in America -- more than straight Dutch people, but less than American gay people.

The difference, of course, would be the higher (though far from perfect) level of acceptability for homosexuals in the Netherlands.

If one would make this comparison, I'll bet the study Mr Perkins cited could be used to argue the exact opposite of what Mr Perkins wants to concluce; namely, that there is a direct correlation between the local acceptation level and the amount of psychological problems among gays.

Does anyone want to try doing that? Does anyone know where to find comparable data on psychological disorders among American gay people?

@24 - I'm curious: do you consider yourself NOT to be bigoted and prejudiced? Or are you making the point that just because you in particular are bigoted and prejudiced, it doesn't mean all Christians are?

It's really hard to convince untrue Christians that they harbor hatred and intolerance, because of the "I love everyone because I'm a Christian" fodder they've been absorbing their whole life. They'll parrot it right back to you after even the most venom-filled screed about gays. No self-awareness at all.

Here's a tip: Claiming to be Christian doesn't automatically mean you love your enemies. Loving your enemies means you love your enemies. Maybe it's time for some self-reflection, "Christian."

I love the obvious statement that the Post doesn't realize that it is making.

"Dan Savage is speaking on how it's bad for gay teenagers to kill themselves and we should stop it."
"Well, we need somebody for balance then. Who's available who believes that it's good for gay teenagers to kill themselves and we should encourage it?"

That's really what they're saying here when they talk about "balance" and they're too stupid to realize it.

@32 - well, that's a relief. Sorry to have mistaken you for a Christian. I know it's not very complimentary, considering how bigoted they all are.

Joking aside - who are this "we" you refer to? Is that why you post with a different name every time, because there's actually a bunch of you in the room? Or do you mean just "we bigots?"

That might be the wrong word. The one I'm looking for describes people who believe a whole other set of people are inferior. I guess your word for that is "scientist."

@31: You lose some credibility when you cite sources that are thirty years old.
@32: You lose some credibility when you champion science, while conveniently ignoring the piles of evidence indicating that sexual orientation is innate, and while citing studies that have been debunked as biased and poorly conducted.
@34: You lose some credibility when you claim that homosexuals as a group seek to oppress Christians. They generally just want to defend themselves. And if this means fighting against Christianity for equal rights under the law in a secular country such as this one, they have every right and reason to do so.
@37: You lose some credibility when you doggedly ignore the problem of society's onslaught against those different from them, and choose instead to take the ever-classy approach of blaming the victim.
@39: You lose some credibility when you say that we think Christians are somehow inferior, and when you claim that correlation implies causation when it comes to Teh Ghey and psychological problems.

Well, well, well...what have we here?

@41 You do realize, I assume, that you lose even more credibility when you don't even bother to cite studies and just make things up?

@43 You and your ilk provide enough ass for all of us :)

In the future start all interviews / live-chats / whatever with something to the effect of, "I wonder what soul destroying, child killing monster you'll be publishing to 'balance' me? I wonder how many kids will read it and be harmed?"

Be interesting to get some answers to such questions.

Time to quit being nice to assholes.

Live at Ten: Do all Christians eat the young of the unfaithful? Hear both sides of the debate!

Seriously, why is it that people can make up any loony delusional hateful shit they want, and it's given the same credence/treated as though it's as valid as rational thought? There IS NO "evolution debate", there IS NO "anthropogenic climate change debate", there IS NO debate over whether the earth is older than 6,000 years (it is, very much so), and there IS NO debate over whether gay people are actually people and citizens, deserving of the same rights as everyone else. There's reality (with which everyone who engages in evidence-based reasoning agrees) and there's baseless, delusional assertions.

Dear major news media organizations: a fair, balanced perspective REQUIRES that you discriminate against stupid, uninformed, disingenuous, misleading, hate-mongering, downright untrue, or otherwise bad ideas and "opinions". "Debate" only exists where there is no clear evidence-based answer to some question, either because the evidence doesn't exist or because the evidence that does exist has no clear method of rational analysis. Gay people are PEOPLE and citizens, that's a fact. The USA is a secular state that by law must give all its citizens equal protection under its laws, that's a fact. There are not "other opinions" that are anything other than delusional, and the delusional ideas have no place in your media distribution networks.