{"id":15404,"date":"2012-05-01T23:51:06","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T06:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=15404"},"modified":"2012-05-03T11:09:54","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T18:09:54","slug":"is-dan-savage-a-bully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=15404","title":{"rendered":"Were Dan Savage&#8217;s Remarks Bullying?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>[Note: I&#8217;ve renamed this post from the original title, &#8220;Is Dan Savage a Bully.&#8221;]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/anti-christian-bigotry.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/anti-christian-bigotry-550x388.gif\" alt=\"\" title=\"anti-christian-bigotry\" width=\"550\" height=\"388\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-15411\" srcset=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/anti-christian-bigotry-550x388.gif 550w, https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/anti-christian-bigotry.gif 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ever read one of those comments and you&#8217;re agreeing with it, agreeing with it, and then the writer yanks the rug out from under you?<\/p>\n<p>So I was reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nomblog.com\/22326\/#comment-103186\">this comment from Jessica<\/a>, on a NOMblog entry about Dan Savage&#8217;s speech that some Christian teenagers walked out of (more on that in a moment). A teacher implied that Savage&#8217;s comments were bullying, and Jessica wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Bullying, bullying, bullying,<\/p>\n<p>He bullies she and she bullies he and everyone bullies and get bullied.<\/p>\n<p>Bullying has become politicized. That is, everyone is accusing everyone else of bullying. It is the latest tin word, thoughtlessly shot across to the other side&#8217;s ranks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And I am <em>so <\/em>in agreement. (Perhaps because I had just read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/04\/dan-savage-proves-his-courage.html\">this post<\/a>, by a Catholic blogger who is furious at Savage for &#8220;bullying&#8221; but sees no problem with his charming habit of calling gay and lesbian folks &#8220;brownshirts.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>Jessica continues:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Well, I&#8217;ll tell you something, I was really bullied, at school, many years ago&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, I&#8217;m totally with you, Jessica. I lived your pain. I know where you&#8217;re coming from.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;and there only way yo cure it is not to have lectures and diversity meetings and talk, the only way to cure bullying is to hang the bullies from lampposts with a sign around their neck, I am a rotten bully and deserve worse.<\/p>\n<p>Any survivor of bullying can tell you this, if you are willing to listen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Eeeeek!<\/p>\n<p>Jessica, please get off my side thanks so much.<\/p>\n<p>Anyhow, about that Dan Savage speech.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"423\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/ao0k9qDsOvs\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>[spoiler intro=&#8221;Transcript&#8221; title=&#8221;Dan Savage video&#8221;]\u201cPeople often point out that they can\u2019t help it. They can\u2019t help with the anti-gay bullyings because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans that being gay is wrong.  We can learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people the same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bullshit in the Bible about all sorts of things.<\/p>\n<p>The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it. The shortest book in the New Testament is a letter from Paul to a Christian slave owner about owning his Christian slave. And Paul doesn\u2019t say Christians don\u2019t own people. Paul talks about how Christians own people. We ignore what the Bible said about slavery because the Bible  got slavery wrong. Sam Harris in Letter to a Christian Nation points out that the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong: slavery.<\/p>\n<p>What are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? 100%. The Bible says that if your daughter\u2019s not a virgin on her wedding night \u2013 that a woman isn\u2019t a virgin on her wedding night, that she shall be dragged to her father\u2019s doorstep and stoned to death. Callista Gingrich lives. And there is no effort to amend state constitutions to make it legal to stone women to death on their wedding night if they\u2019re not virgins. At least not yet. We don\u2019t know where the GOP is going these days. People are dying because people can\u2019t clear this one last hurdle. They can\u2019t get past this one last thing in the Bible about homosexuality.<\/p>\n<p>One thing I want to talk about is \u2013 ha, so you can tell the Bible guys in the hall that they can come back in because I\u2019m done beating up the Bible. It\u2019s funny that someone who\u2019s on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-assed some people react to being pushed back. I apologize if I hurt anyone\u2019s feelings but I have the 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>(Transcript via <a href=\"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/blaghag\/2012\/04\/christianity-is-bullshit-and-im-not-apologizing-for-saying-that\/\">Blag Hag<\/a>.)[\/spoiler]<\/p>\n<p>1) Credit to the videographer: That is a gorgeously framed shot. <\/p>\n<p>2) The thing I found most objectionable, on first listen, was Savage&#8217;s use of the term &#8220;pansy-assed&#8221; &#8212; an attack <a href=\"http:\/\/slog.thestranger.com\/slog\/archives\/2012\/04\/29\/on-bullshit-and-pansy-assed\">Savage has since apologized for<\/a>, while standing by the rest of his speech (although admitting that his use of the word &#8220;bullshit&#8221; may not have been wise).<\/p>\n<p>3) Is there really a case for calling what Savage did &#8220;bullying?&#8221; I guess it was rude to use the word &#8220;bullshit&#8221; when referring to someone&#8217;s religion. But the actual <em>content <\/em>of Savage&#8217;s statement is an argument. And I have trouble accepting that <em>disagreeing <\/em>with (some) Christians is tantamount to bullying Christians.<\/p>\n<p>Although there are many Christians with other, sometimes more sophisticated, anti-gay arguments, you don&#8217;t have to talk to opponents of lgbt rights much to see that the &#8220;I believe it because it&#8217;s what&#8217;s in the Bible&#8221; comes up a <em>lot<\/em>. It&#8217;s legitimate of Savage to respond to that argument.<\/p>\n<p>4) I can see an argument that Savage was wrong &#8212; rude, uncivil, and insensitive &#8212; to use the word &#8220;bullshit&#8221; three times. Savage isn&#8217;t an average man on the street; he&#8217;s a professional and seasoned speaker, who was invited to speak to an audience of minors. Under those circumstances, it&#8217;s reasonable to hold Savage to higher standards than we&#8217;d hold folks to in an average political disagreement in a bar. <\/p>\n<p>5) On the other hand, this wasn&#8217;t a school assembly with a captive audience. It was a journalism conference that student journalists chose to attend; and as far as I know, all of the students had the option of simply not attending Savage&#8217;s speech. That Savage uses swear words while speaking and writing is hardly a surprise to anyone; and future journalists shouldn&#8217;t spontaneously blanch and flee because someone uses the word &#8220;bullshit&#8221; three times while making an argument they disagree with.<\/p>\n<p>6) I have some doubt that this was a spontaneous walkout; the walkout starts before Savage ever swears, the students in the video are often smirking, and the video is so <em>very <\/em>nicely framed. If this was, in fact, a planned protest, that wouldn&#8217;t delegitimize the protest, so it&#8217;s not an important point.<\/p>\n<p>7) When I was a teenager, I swore <em>constantly<\/em>, except when I was around grownups. Hearing the word &#8220;bullshit&#8221; was not a shocker. Are teenagers now different? Are right-wing Christian teenagers different?<\/p>\n<p>8 ) Although I don&#8217;t think Savage&#8217;s words were bullying, I can see an argument that they were insensitive. The truth is, Christians in the US are used to having their beliefs treated with a great deal of deference and respect; saying that some of the Bible is &#8220;bullshit&#8221; probably isn&#8217;t the smartest way to get the point across. Savage&#8217;s argument &#8212; which I think was legitimate &#8212; has been lost, because either out of sincerity or out of opportunism, right-wingers are now shocked (or, perhaps, &#8220;shocked! shocked!&#8221;) that Savage used cuss words while discussing the Bible. Or that he criticized the Bible at all &#8211; it&#8217;s hard to tell if people are objecting to his tone or to the argument itself.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"423\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/-Gf8NK1WAOc\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>9) Although I realize the title of this post could be seen as an invitation for a discussion of Dan Savage generally, I&#8217;d rather not go there. Let&#8217;s restrict discussion to this one particular incident, please.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Note: I&#8217;ve renamed this post from the original title, &#8220;Is Dan Savage a Bully.&#8221;] Ever read one of those comments and you&#8217;re agreeing with it, agreeing with it, and then the writer yanks the rug out from under you? So &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=15404\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lesbian-gay-bi-trans-and-queer-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15404"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15416,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15404\/revisions\/15416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}