Dan Savage discusses bible at High School Journalism convention

[Almira]

Brava!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao0k9qDsOvs

[ErikJ972]

Boo. I wonder how many minds he changed that day. There's never an excuse to call a bunch of high school students pansy asses. The message gets lost and becomes what he's preaching against. Stupid move.

[DurtyCurty]

It reminds me of the South Park bully episode.
It gets better when you become the bully yourself.

[JoeKv99]

I agree with Dan when he says he shouldn't have called them "pansy assed" but bullying it's not.

[ErikJ972]

An adult calling upset kids pansy asses in front of an entire auditorium of other kids is bullying.

[PalJoey]

He's got to decide whether he wants to go on being a sassy and outrageous provocateur or if he wants to continue in his post-It Gets Better role as spokesperson for the entire LGBT movement.

He can't be both--or he'll just go on being a lightning rod like this.

And, by the way, there's some evidence out there that the students walking out was planned in advance by Focus on the Family.

[DAME]

I think it was planned. Especially since the camera that captures the walk outs was positioned the way it was.

[JoeKv99]

Can we say that ganging up on an individual speaker and walking out in a group is bullying then?

[ErikJ972]

Joe...No. He was being inflammatory and the students who disagreed with him walked out silently without disrupting him. Plus...he's the adult, they were kids.
I just worked with the GSA of my school to get over 300 kids to participate in the Day of Silence. When we met with students who disagreed with the message we educated them through conversation...not by calling them names.
This just makes Dan Savage look like an asshole.

[soapguy17]

I agree wholeheartedly with Pal Joey. Savage's "jackass-ish" approach to "activism" as always rubbed me the wrong way and I assumed it would eventually come back and bite him in the rear end as soon as this "It Gets Better" campaign started. You don't have to have a degree in rhetoric (or even take the time to read about it) to understand why Savage reacting in the way that he did is only going to undermine the work he's doing.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

He's always been a lightning rod. Women, bisexuals, and heavier people are just groups off the top of my that head that I know to have all found things to be offended by him, whether justified or not. I feel like I hear more complaints about him from LGBQT people than I do anything else.

Also, I agree that perhaps we need to stop referring to every action we don't like by someone as "bullying."

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

When did he decide that he's the spokesperson for all LGBT people? There's definitely so many comments he has made that I've found offensive and just plain not true or reflective in any way of my political and personal values. A lot of famous LGBT academics like Judith Butler and Michael Warner have been very active in their dislike for him too. Most of all, he really annoys me.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

I don't think he's ever claimed to be a spokesperson for all LGBT people.

[FindingNamo]

Remember when Perez Hilton, of all queens, kept screaming at Will.I.Am in public, calling him a faggot? That's what I think of when I hear Dan Savage calling somebody a pansy ass.

[madbrian]

I'm not sure why anyone would invite Savage to speak at a HS journalism conference. He was being a jackass, but he was being himself. To me, there's blame to be assigned to whoever booked him.

[Almira]

I know I'm not coming from the highest moral or ethical plane, but I found it refreshing that someone I agree with gave it back as good as we've been getting it.

I will agree that he was bullying intellectually , but that is hardly the bullying that inspires fear for physical safety or a dangerously diminished sense of self worth. He challenged ideas and used "pansy-ass" to describe those too cowardly to examine their own belief systems.

Did he change minds? No. But his words, ideas and critiques can and probably have emboldened and encouraged those who have so often felt victimized but those who use the Bible to justify genuine bullying and other atrocities.

However imperfect the approach or situation, provocateurs have an important place in all social change. I often think we on the the left have been too pansy-ass ourselves when it comes to being bold in the assertion of our beliefs. There is place for Martin Luther Kings and Malcolm Xs in the pursuit of social and economic jusice.

If anyone was actually scarred by his comments, I feel deep sympathy for them, but I still admire Savage.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Was this a Jesus school?

Is there any article or video that shows how the bible even came up in the speech? The video just starts with him talking about it.

All he said in the clip was that there's a lot of BS in the bible that people don't follow (and then gives all the examples we've heard before) but still use it as an excuse for homophobia. That's what made these journalism students leave. I don't see that referring to them as "pansy-assed" because of that makes Savage the dick.

[ErikJ972]

"I know I'm not coming from the highest moral or ethical plane, but I found it refreshing that someone I agree with gave it back as good as we've been getting it."

Who was he giving it back to? You don't have to be a bully to be offended by someone calling the bible bull****. Those kids didn't call him names and for all we know they're not bullies in their own schools. That's not the way you teach kids. It's not like he was addressing the Focus on the Family, he was addressing high school students.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Also from the video, so like within a minute of the BS comment, "I apolize if I've hurt anyone's feelings, but I have a right to defend myself and to point out the hypocrisy of people who justify anti-gay bigotry by pointing to the Bible and insisting that we must live by the code of Leviticus on this one issue and no other."

[ErikJ972]

"I apolize if I've hurt anyone's feelings, but I have a right to defend myself and to point out the hypocrisy of people who justify anti-gay bigotry by pointing to the Bible and insisting that we must live by the code of Leviticus on this one issue and no other."

And which one of the kids he called a pansy ass did that?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

I don't know. It's just a clip of the speech. It doesn't even give the lead up to how he started talking about the Bible in the first place.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

The Young Turks says the speech was about anti-bullying. Is that right? I still can't get any more info on the speech except for the three minutes that start after he says "The Bible."

[Almira]

I don't know the context of the entire speech either. The students were, I'm assuming, part of some Journalism Convention. The idea that Savage was there to "teach" them anything is unknown to me. But if he was invited to speak, we can assume, the organizers wanted to hear his opinions, including defenses for his opinions.

Again, I don't know the entire context, but I don't get the feeling from the clip that he is debating anyone specifically from the audience, just ideas counter to his own.

As for offending his audience by calling the portions of the Bible that sanction human slavery and the murder of women "bull****", was it inappropriate? Maybe. I personally find it telling that a generic two-syllable curse-word would invite more offense than the ideas condoning holding people in chattel and stoning women to death it describes.


This incident hasn't turned me against Savage. He may someday do something that does, but this isn't it. I still admire him.

[Mister Matt]

I know I'm not coming from the highest moral or ethical plane, but I found it refreshing that someone I agree with gave it back as good as we've been getting it.

I disagree. Savage seems like a total bottom.

[Almira]

I disagree. Savage seems like a total bottom.


Which is fine by me.