I heard an interview with you about your It Gets Better campaign. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bullying. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man who took his own life.
If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man.
To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people.
Please consider your viewpoint, and please be more careful with your words in the future.
L.R.
I’m sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.
No, wait. I’m not. Gay kids are dying. So let’s try to keep things in perspective: Fuck your feelings.
A question: Do you “support” atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All are legal, all go against Christian and/or traditional ideas about marriage, and yet there’s no “Christian” movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or people divorcing and remarrying. Why the hell not?
Sorry, L.R., but so long as you support the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, it’s clear that you do believe that some people—straight people—are “better or more worthy” than others.
And—sorry—but you are partly responsible for the bullying and physical violence being visited on vulnerable LGBT children. The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.
Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not “sinners.” Gay and lesbian children.
Try to keep up: The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of “faithful Christians,” and the lies about us that vomit out from the pulpits of churches that “faithful Christians” drag their kids to on Sundays, give your children license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your children—having listened to Mom and Dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry—feel justified in physically abusing the LGBT children they encounter in their schools. You don’t have to explicitly “encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate” queer kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It’s here, it’s clear, and we’re seeing the fruits of it: dead children.
Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?
Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn’t have hurt nearly as much as what was said and done to Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas and Cody Barker and Seth Walsh—day in, day out for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the image of the hateful and false “followers of Christ” they call Mom and Dad.
I am engaged to a man whose sexual orientation is somewhat confusing to me.
A few months ago, I discovered transgender porn on his computer. When I asked him about it, he said he just watches all kinds of porn “just to watch it.” That sounded like total bullshit to me—and it was proved to be total bullshit when I discovered that he watches ONLY this type of porn. I also recently discovered a letter he had composed a few years back to another man asking him to “hook up.” The letter also states that my fiancé had a girlfriend, and since “discretion is very important” to him, he could only hook up when she was out of town.
I can deal with somebody being bisexual. I have bisexual fantasies myself. However, I can’t deal with someone lying to himself and to me, and being unfaithful. Sadly, I can’t really make this guy confess to me that he is bi. When I tried, he simply told me, “You are so blind.” What does that mean?
I really don’t want to dump the guy. I love him. My question is, I guess, what the fuck do I do? I feel like crazy bitch supreme trying to get this out of him, but it’s impossible not to think about.
Bitchy Girlfriend
There’s nothing to be confused about: Your fiancé is very clearly bisexual. Gay men just aren’t into chicks-with-dicks porn; that’s a genre that appeals exclusively to straight/straightish/bi male viewers.
So why can he be open about his cocksuckery with a complete stranger—that dude he sent the letter that you “discovered”—but not with you?
It’s a tired cliché, I realize, and I shy away from it for that reason, but in this case the shoe fits: Your fiancé has a bad case of the internalized homophobias. He finds it easier to be open with someone he doesn’t care about and is unlikely to see ever again precisely because he doesn’t care about that person and isn’t going to see him again. If you or the other people in his life he’s close to knew, he fears you would see him as damaged or inferior because that’s how he sees himself.
So, yep, a bad case of the internalized homophobias. He’s not entirely responsible for contracting this malady—our homophobic culture is the disease vector here—but, as an adult, he is responsible for working through it, for overcoming it, for being truthful with himself and the people he claims to love.
If he can’t be honest with you—the snoop he claims to love—about his sexual orientation, and if being cheated on is a deal breaker for you (and he will cheat on you), don’t marry him.
I’m a loud fucker, just like the partner of the woman who wrote in recently. With my consent, my partner uses a pillow to dampen my screams, so I don’t have to worry I’ll piss off the neighbors.
Lesbians Do Scream
It’s all fun and games—loud fun, ear-splitting games—until someone accidentally asphyxiates a screamer. But thanks for sharing, LDS.
@ 352 Please walk away, never look back, and never come back either, at least to slog.
@ 352 Please please please walk away, never look back, and never come back either, at least to slog.
Bravo for standing up and telling it like it is. Any gay person who apologizes for the inequities visited upon them are demeaning themselves and our culture. Somewhere, somehow, we (our culture) have “allowed” people to have open discourse speaking of LGBT people as if there were something wrong with them. Maybe it’s a step up from the de-humanization that has occured over history but I don’t think anyone should settle for less than “full humanity”, and apparently, neither do you.
Straight, white, middle-aged male (although I DO have a gay son)
Dan, I grew up in the Willamette Valley, in an area where anyone with any intelligence at all knew better than to express anti-gay sentiment, and I was regularly bullied for *being gay* (I’m not gay, but for some reason I give gay vibes). The bullies, or most of them (not to mention the kids who would watch and do nothing) were from liberal, “gay-accepting” families. Kids bully people who are different, and so long as heteros are the majority of the population I doubt that LGBT kids will have it any easier for a very, very long time.
I even got into a fight once for *being gay* (though I’m not gay, I said I was). The teacher who resolved the issue was a lesbian herself, but did zip to punish the offenders.
And yeah, I’m sure the women whose feelings you are so willing to trample over won’t hold any bitterness over it. No, you couldn’t possibly have made the problem worse for the LGBT peers of her kids by telling her essentially to go fuck herself.
Being a popular advocate for the cause doesn’t mean you can do no wrong in the service of that cause, Dan.
As if you’ll ever read this.
So, Dan Savage believes that the Christian conviction against gay marriage, because it explicitly identifies an entire outlook on life as wrong, is itself an implicit encouragement of bullying, ipso facto. He rejects the notion that people can raise their children in the belief that others are honestly mistaken in their feelings and impulses, yet simultaneously teach them that they should not bully or abuse others for that reason.
I wonder, then, if Dan Savage would be willing to have this criticism turned back upon him. By denouncing Christians as wrong-headed bigots, he himself has said that their ideas are “less worthy” than others. One can assume that if he were to adopt children or be responsible for teaching others, that he would pass these values on. And, since he believes that it is impossible to inculcate values that condemn others’ beliefs, without implictly calling for them to be bullied to the point of suicide, we can see that Dan Savage is calling for the abuse, bullying and suicide of Christians when he denounces their entire worldview as inferior and bigoted.
His thoughtless and idiotic diatribe is rightly to be rejected. Christians believe that it is possible to draw a line in the sand between right and wrong, and we believe that this also involves teaching our children not to harass and bully others simply because they have some wrong-headed ideas or disordered feelings. Dan Savage doesn’t believe in these kinds of distinctions, however, and so there is no other way to interpret his own bigotry and denunciation of Christian beliefs, save as a belief that Christians should be harrassed and bullied to the point of suicide… because, they’re the “wrong” ones, after all.
If If he believes that he can denounce Christian beliefs without implicitly calling for systematic violence against Christians, perhaps he would be willing to return the favour, and believe that Christians can denounce homosexual ideology without calling for systematic violence against homosexuals? What an hypocrite! This is the typical inability of the radical leftist, to think his way out of a wet paper bag.
Everybody who just “goes with the flow” in our society should watch out. Christians and conservatives are at least capable of showing some tolerance, and at least their philosophical outlook affirms unambiguously the dignity of all human persons on absolute moral grounds. If occasionally minorities are mistreated under the conservative watch, there is a philosophical ground for criticizing it – just as many pious Christians opposed the Inquisition, sheltered Jews from the Nazis and pioneered the Civil Rights movement. Comments like these from Dan Savage show us just how benign and philosophically sophisticated a world run by liberal ideologues will be.
So, Dan Savage believes that the Christian conviction against gay marriage, because it explicitly identifies an entire outlook on life as wrong, is itself an implicit encouragement of bullying, ipso facto. He rejects the notion that people can raise their children in the belief that others are honestly mistaken in their feelings and impulses, yet simultaneously teach them that they should not bully or abuse others for that reason.
I wonder, then, if Dan Savage would be willing to have this criticism turned back upon him. Since he believes that it is impossible to inculcate values that condemn others’ beliefs, without implictly calling for them to be bullied to the point of suicide, we can see that Dan Savage is calling for the abuse, bullying and suicide of Christians when he denounces their entire worldview as inferior and bigoted.
His thoughtless and idiotic diatribe is rightly to be rejected. Christians believe that it is possible to draw a line in the sand between right and wrong, and we believe that this also involves teaching our children not to harass and bully others simply because those others have some wrong-headed ideas or disordered feelings. Dan Savage doesn’t believe in these kinds of distinctions, however, and so there is no other way to interpret his own bigotry and denunciation of Christian beliefs, save as a belief that Christians should be harrassed and bullied to the point of suicide… because, they’re the “wrong” ones, after all.
And all of you who, perhaps only secretly, are thinking: “Yeah, Christians should be harassed and bullied to the point of suicide.” Surprise! You’re what’s wrong with the world; *you* are the one with hatred in your heart.
If Dan Savage believes that he can denounce Christian beliefs without implicitly calling for systematic violence against Christians, perhaps he would be willing to return the favour, and believe that Christians can denounce homosexual ideology without calling for systematic violence against homosexuals? What an hypocrite! This is the typical inability of the radical leftist, to think his way out of a wet paper bag. It’s all about an emotion of righteous indignation and self-flattery as a thoughtful rebel. But really, it’s a way for the intellectually lazy to flatter themselves while jeopardizing every commitment to principled reasoning, which allows a society to stand and flourish.
Everybody who just “goes with the flow” in our society should watch out. Christians and conservatives are at least capable of showing some tolerance, and at least their philosophical outlook affirms unambiguously the dignity of all human persons on absolute moral grounds. If occasionally minorities are mistreated under the conservative watch, there is a philosophical ground for criticizing it – just as many pious Christians opposed the Inquisition, sheltered Jews from the Nazis and pioneered the Civil Rights movement. Comments like these from Dan Savage show us just how benign and philosophically sophisticated a world run by liberal ideologues will be.
ya’ll need to get out more– you act like you never met a gay christian-
I have in-laws who are very vocally anti-gay and we clash on the subject frequently. I think if you want to be seen as a ‘good christian’ you need to shout down the bad ones whenever and where ever possible. Yell it from the rooftops! As someone who believes in a loving, forgiving God and who believes that there is absolutely nothing wrong with homosexuality it is my DUTY to shout them down or if I can’t to at least dull their voices.
My in-laws are very vocally anti-gay and we clash on that frequently. I think if you really want to have the ‘good christians’ recognized you need to be as active and vocal as the other guys. Shout it from the rooftops! I believe in a loving, forgiving God and I see absolutely nothing wrong with homosexuality. However I’m would not be a ‘good christian’ if I just sat on the sidelines. Be active, sign petitions, post it to your social network of choice, start conversations, get your friends in on it with you! Be as loud and proud to support the gay community as they are when supporting themselves.
Great, now I’m offended from both ends. This lady is definitely blind to her own bigotry and the effect her words and beliefs have; still quite frankly, as someone whose faith has often been the virtually the ONLY thing that kept me from suicide (most recently I discovered even my fellow queer friends really suck in the suicide support department), I’m deeply hurt and offended by the continuation of this notion that religion is the root cause of said bigotry. Quite frankly, I’d rather be allowed to kill myself than have people like this “supporting” me. If you support me, support all of me, but calling my savior “magic friend in the sky Jesus” undermines any words of comfort or hope you have to offer. Thanks but no thanks.
I am a Christian and I love the Lord and I also love gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and queer people. Every human deserves the same rights, including the right to marry. I am bisexual myself and there is nothing wrong with my feelings and my love for whoever God blesses me with. So-called “Christians” who “hate the sin” and “judge sinners” need to go back and read the Bible some more.
I love you Dan Savage 😀 😀 😀
Oh, so that fanatic wants to silence thoughts that disagree with the little world that LR has surrounded themselves with. Too goddamned bad. I’ll say it again: too goddamned bad. I grew up with Christian right fanatics like LR and they have no problem imposing their views on others in the spirit of witnessing. But they don’t want to reciprocate and hear an opposing view.
Instead, they want to pass laws restricting the rights and freedoms of the people they find disagreeable. LR go fuck yourself. The times they are a changin’
Suicide is for cowards. Suck it up, learn some boxing, and then fight back against the bullies. None of this namby-pamby bullshit about trying to enforce tolerance and acceptance. Earn respect with your fists!
People of all sexualities and desires watch all sorts of porn, Dan. Really, is this new to you? And the partner of the girlfriend in letter #2 is not necessarily bisexual. Why not suggest that his gf ASK how he identifies and/or what his desires are, in an open and accepting way? Why not suppose that perhaps he is struggling with his own gender identity and/or desires, and watches trans porn with the fantasy of himself as a transwoman, being fucked by a man? I actually thought it odd and bewildering that there was an assumption that the porn being watched was of transwomen–is it not possible that he’s watching all sorts of trans-identified porn? You didn’t help “make it better” in your response; rather, you perpetuated closed-minded assumptions and generalizations about the wide range of human sexuality, and came off as judgemental and, quite frankly, clueless. There’s a larger queer community out here that you don’t seem to be a part of or want to know about, explore, or understand. You might want to work a little bit on thinking about how YOU can make it better.
I am ok with gay lifestyle, but push it on my kids and you get an enemy quick. No reason that my 2nd grader came home with a letter talking about a mandatory conference on homosexual acceptance. Your agenda is backfiring.
Bullying … Church Sponsored Terrorism
When are we going to finally point the finger at the root cause of discrimination and bullying in this country? How many more teens have to shoot themselves, hang themselves or jump off bridges? How many kids have to be pistol whipped, crucified and hung on a fence to linger and die? We’ve got Fred Phelps running around the country viciously picketing the funerals of our honored veterans. We’ve got the radical right wing of the Republican Party on “C” Street denying evolution and writing laws for the country of Uganda calling for the execution of gays and the imprisonment of their families and friends. A single district in Minnesota has seen seven suicides in the last year by young victims of intolerance, while Tom Emmer, a virulently anti-LGBT candidate, supported by the “C” Street gang and the Tea Party, seeks the governor’s chair. The Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell is virtually stalking Chris Armstrong, the gay student assembly president at the University of Michigan.
Half of all teen suicides are the result of kids being tormented about their sexuality … either by their preacher, priest, rabbi or imam telling them that they are going to burn in hell for eternity … or because they are bullied to death by surrogates who have been brainwashed by those same preachers, priests, rabbis and imams.
While science has demonstrated sufficient anecdotal evidence to establish that sexuality is determined during gestation and that it is not an individual’s conscious choice, the religions of the world continue to ignore the science and inculcate the most vicious levels of intolerance, prejudice and discrimination into their congregations every day. It is nothing short of church sponsored terrorism for the 30,000,000 GLTB citizens of this country. While the rest of the civilized world has grown to recognize the scientific evidence and embraced the GLTB community, the USA, fueled by the prejudice from the pulpit and aided and abetted by legislators and educators, has slipped back into the Dark Ages.
The world is not flat and the sun does not revolve around Planet Earth! African Americans do not carry the mark of Cain and evolution and DNA are sound science!
Bullying, intolerance, bigotry, prejudice, discrimination … it’s time to call it what it is … church sponsored, and legislatively abetted terrorism! If we are serious about ending it … we need to start there!
Jon Michael
2888 Rush Branch Road
Bradfordsville, KY 40009
270-337-2000
Bullying … Church Sponsored Terrorism
When are we going to finally point the finger at the root cause of discrimination and bullying in this country? How many more teens have to shoot themselves, hang themselves or jump off bridges? How many kids have to be pistol whipped, crucified and hung on a fence to linger and die?
We’ve got Fred Phelps running around the country viciously picketing the funerals of our honored veterans. We’ve got the radical right wing of the Republican Party on “C” Street denying evolution and writing laws for the country of Uganda calling for the execution of gays and the imprisonment of their families and friends. A single district in Minnesota has seen seven suicides in the last year by young victims of intolerance, while Tom Emmer, a virulently anti-LGBT candidate, supported by the “C” Street gang and the Tea Party, seeks the governor’s chair. The Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell is virtually stalking Chris Armstrong, the gay student assembly president at the University of Michigan.
Half of all teen suicides are the result of kids being tormented about their sexuality … either by their preacher, priest, rabbi or imam telling them that they are going to burn in hell for eternity … or because they are bullied to death by surrogates who have been brainwashed by those same preachers, priests, rabbis and imams.
While science has demonstrated sufficient evidence to establish that sexuality is determined during gestation and that it is not an individual’s conscious choice, the religions of the world continue to ignore the science and inculcate the most vicious levels of intolerance, prejudice and discrimination into their congregations every day.
It is nothing short of church sponsored terrorism for the 30,000,000 LGBT citizens of this country. While the rest of the civilized world has grown to recognize the scientific evidence and embraced the LGBT community, the USA, fueled by the prejudice from the pulpit and aided and abetted by legislators and educators, has slipped back into the Dark Ages.
The world is not flat and the sun does not revolve around Planet Earth! African Americans do not carry the mark of Cain and evolution and DNA are sound science!
Bullying, intolerance, bigotry, prejudice, discrimination … it’s time to call it what it is … church sponsored, and legislatively abetted terrorism! If we are serious about ending it … we need to start there!
@ 365: Yeah, and then the teachers who’ve been looking the other way decide to crack down. I was there, beat the crap out of someone who’d been picking on me for four years, and got suspended. Not once did anything happen when I was found bloody, when I had an ulcer at the age of 16 from what I was going through, when I missed ten weeks of school in one year to avoid the harassment and beatings. But when I finally stood up for myself, THEN it became a problem.
Dear Christians,
If you have actually read the Bible (and even sort of understand it), you would understand that it is not promoting any negative connotation towards gay people. The part of the bible that discusses gay men, is in the same book where instructions for sacrificing animals are given, women are considered just as unclean when they are menstruating, and we are instructed not to eat pork. In today’s society we do not follow any of these rituals or rules. Do you lock your daughters away when they menstruate, sacrifice animals at an alter, and refuse to eat bacon? No, then why do you continue to believe that the Bible tells you that gay = bad? You are misinterpreting the bible to promote your own bigoted and hateful agendas, something which, by the way, is the exact opposite of the intended message of the Bible. The Lord would not support these attitudes or behavior and it is shameful for you to use His name when promoting them.
Dear Non-Christians,
Many of us Christians support gay rights. It is possible to have a strong faith in God and support gay rights. In fact, I go to a Lutheran church where our pastor gave a sermon promoting the rights of gay people. Please realize that not all of us support this hateful agenda and some of us actually work towards promoting equal rights for gay people.
I’ll consider accepting responsibilty for school bullying when I hear men who have “sex” with men accept some responsibility for the 15,000 plus men in my city of San Francisco (including four personal friends) who did not make it to age 50 because of AIDS.
Gibbons in SF
Dan, you are an idiot. You cannot use a false comparison fallacy to attack someone, nor is attacking a person a way to settle an argument. You said it yourself, F your feelings. If that persons feelings aren’t important, why are anyone else’s? Sounds pretty hypocrtical to me.
What’s this bollocks about LGBT children? There aren’t any children who are gay or transgendered. Children have no sexual orientation. If you mean adolescents, say adolescents.
@ 157 I am sitting here at work and have been reading all of these comments and have not been compelled to add my own until I read yours. It made me feel sick with anger. I spent 6 years of my life being tortured by a man who was a pedophile and a part of my family. In no way can a pedophile be compared to a gay person because a pedophile is hurting someone mentally and physically. A person may have an attraction to children and can’t help it but they choose to act on it. Gay people can’t choose how they feel and how are they hurting anybody they just want to be happy and live their lives. Who are we to tell them that they cant! That comparison was wrong on so many levels and you are an asshole.
Well, that was some serious Christian=bashing.
No need for it, Dan. You’re skilled enough to go for bashing that holier than thou riting style, or for going some other less
So some Christians act like assholes. Oh, big fat newsflash.
So what? There’s assholes everywhere. Would have been nice to distinguish. Some Christians are liberal, caring, and don’t talk or write like they have had a bible reading or 500 too much.
But no, you had to just ditch an entire faith. That’s easy, damn low, and I expect more from you. Wonder if you’d do the same with Islam – a religion far less tolerant of gays – and of Buhhlism – which isn’t really supportive of gays, either.
Dan–
I am religious and socially liberal. I went to a religiously affiliated university, and felt like the minority due to my political/social views. I went to a liberal, secular graduate school,and felt marginalized there as well.
There are so many closed-minded people in the world, if you can be open minded about sexuality (as in your column), I wish you could be a little more open minded about other things as well.
Like the fact that you can’t paint all religious people with the same brush. Social justice, to me and many religious people, was what was so radical about Jesus’ life. I believe in equality.
You could have written a better response to that letter.
You do know the “gay teen suicide epidemic” is a myth, right? Think about this for 10 seconds and you’ll see some real problems. How did the people who collected the data about this find out about the sexual preference of all the suicides? This isn’t exactly a matter of public record.
The Gibson study this whole story is based on was not peer-reviewed and was explicitly rejected by the government panel it was submitted to.
I’d respect your arguments a great deal more if you worked from real facts rather than numbers that float around in the public consciousness with no real basis.
You do know the “gay teen suicide epidemic” is a myth, right? Think about this for 10 seconds and you’ll see some real problems. How did the people who collected the data about this find out about the sexual preference of all the suicides? This isn’t exactly a matter of public record.
The Gibson study this whole story is based on was not peer-reviewed and was explicitly rejected by the government panel it was submitted to.
I’d respect your arguments a great deal more if you worked from real facts rather than numbers that float around in the public consciousness with no real basis.