Dan Savage discusses bible at High School Journalism convention

EDIT: Make sure you watch to the end, so you can hear him call the students who walked out in protest "pansy assed".

If you aren't familiar, this is the guy who volunteered for Gary Bauer's campaign, so that he could spread his snot around Mr Bauer's headquarters in hopes of giving Bauer's staff the flu.

I do think its funny that he says at the end he is sorry if he hurt anyones feelings but he has to defend himself. Um did he go there and request to do a speech and is now doing it? That isn't defending yourself. If he was out somewhere and someone started insulting him because he was gay then I would give him that argument. Also he could have been taken more seriously without using insults or political cheap shots but w/e.

"Bully", like 'rape', is one of those words with a wide range of meanings - some of which are extreme, and some of which are not. (Before anyone attacks me for implying that rape is sometimes not extreme - I'm talking about 'date rape' scenarios involving a bit of alcohol and some honest confusion, misunderstandings.)

I was expecting a video in which a gay guy severely verbally assaults a christian teen (misread the plural), while using physical intimidation.

I see that you can technically call a few elements of this 'bullying' also. Just not as extreme as I was expecting.



Some of those students may have left 'in protest', but others were leaving because they uncomfortable with this truth:

It appears to me that he views his overall campaign to speak out against the basis for anti-gay sentiments is a form of 'defending himself'.

I want to defend myself against invasive government. I don't need to be directly, immediately threatened by invasive government to 'defend myself' against it by speaking out against it.

Maybe assault would have been a better crime to use?



What he did was wholly unacceptable from a scholastic standpoint.



Those quotes don't bother me a bit, what I am interested in is your mind reading powers. How do you watch a video and then read the minds of the people in the videos? That's a very impressive talent.

Do you feel that just by being Christians, those students were "guilty" and he needed to "defend" himself from them by verbally abusing them?

He assaulted (colloquial use) their beliefs, and he insulted them.

Legally, I don't see that he assaulted them.



I agree.




I misspoke in my implication that they may have been thinking specifically of those quotes - but it doesn't take exceptional mind reading powers to see that some of those students are both (a) uncomfortable with what was being said and (b) knew that he was, in some sense, right. This is evident in their faces.




Not all people who call themselves christian believe that homosexuality is a sin, so of course I don't think those students' christianity makes them guilty.

Further, many people-who-call-themselves-christian think that homosexuality is technically a sin, on par with the many sins they commit each day, and do not put special focus on homosexuality.

Further, many p-w-c-t-c who comment on "homosexuality as a sin", do the best they can to do so with a mood and a message of love.

So no, of course I don't think they are guilty by virtue of being a christian.

Which portion struck you as particular verbally abusive? The use of the word 'pansy' (was it pansy-a**? i forget), or the use of the word 'b***s***', or something else?

I meant that assault would have been a better crime to use as a comparison, rather than rape.



Still sounds like mind reading to me.



I'm not going to go through what he said word for word and pick out what was most offensive. It was wholly unacceptable and reprehensible.

but speaking out against something is different than calling strangers names,,,,,thats not really defense if they have not initiated some threat against you,,,

In my mind, there are many separate components to this question, which I wanted to look at before attempting to answer.

If you are asking whether there is anything which makes insulting (with 'pansy-assed') the students necessary or even advisable, my answer is no. I see no value in him calling people 'pansy-assed'. It was wrong.


But some people are equally insulted by saying that the bible is '********'. While thats not professional, not a good foundation for reasoned discourse, and not respectful, its not completely lacking in value.

In the course of protecting other gays from future acts of violence, I do see a value in attacking some of the messages of the bible.

MsHarmony, from where I'm sitting your response has nothing to do with my comment.

I was not commenting directly on the video, but on one specific thing that Chazster said:




I believe that proactively seeking speaking engagements is a form of defending yourself, and defending other people.

I agree with you in that his 'pansy-***' insult was gratuitous, and not any form of defense.

Sounds to me like he needs to think about his emotions when he is trying to present his thoughts.

Sometimes an issue can be too personal to allow you to be fair minded and present your position without having it devolve into name calling.

It is absolutely without value. I won't even try to debate that with you. There is no value in calling the Bible or parts of it "bull****".




Now this, is bull****. How about encourage Christians to follow the Bible and not what they have been told is in it? That would be a better use of his time than insulting all Christians. Just like it does no good for a Christian to tell gays that they are sinning, it does no good to tell Christians that the bible is bull****.

I was specifically responding to this paragraph

"It appears to me that he views his overall campaign to speak out against the basis for anti-gay sentiments is a form of 'defending himself'

I agree. I applied the same mystical mind reading techniques to savage. I believe he has a lot of personal resentment on this topic. I got the impression that he knew that what he was saying was wrong, but he lacked the grace and humility to recognize it and change the course of his thoughts. instead he made an insincere apology and offered up a pathetic justification.

I'm less committed to that assessment since (as a speaker in front of a group) he was affecting artificial mannerisms.

Which, as I said, has nothing to do specifically with the video and everything to do with the implication that one cannot 'defend' themselves through proactive public speaking.

In your response to that specific comment, you mention events in the video, as if there might be confusion about the context of my statement.

apparently, there was

I saw the video as a part of his 'campaign to speak out', thats why I responded as I did

no big deal,,,just opinions floating about as usual,,,

We each stated positions, and you've stated a disinterest in debating.

Fair enough.




Now this, is bull****. How about encourage Christians to follow the Bible and not what they have been told is in it?


At first I thought these were not mutually exclusive choices- then I realized that it depends on what you mean by 'follow the bible'.

I think there is much to be said for encouraging people to follow much of the message of the new testament.

And yes, I recognized that there are myths about what is in the bible, promoted by christians, non-christians, and anti-christians.





You are correct if his only goal was related to influencing the minds of people who already think that the bible is the unassailable literal word of god, or those who are heavily emotionally invested in the perfection of the bible.

Wait...why am I defending the choices of a person who words I disagree with?

I agree with you that there are definite drawbacks to calling the bible ********, including, as you imply, the extreme alienation of that portion of his audience.

From my experience, I would expect that not all christians are insulted by his words. Here in liberal california we have a bunch of people who call themselves christians who love jesus and who accept jesus as their personal savior who, hearing "the bible is ********" would like think that the speaker really means 'parts of the bible are ********' and they actually agree. They are found both in the liberal community and the academic community.

The video is part of his campaign to speak out, but just because I think that the general idea of 'advocacy as defense' is valid, that doesn't mean that I think that all possible actions taken through the course of that advocacy are 'justifiable', or even related to 'defending oneself'.

Just because I agree with the idea of 'advocacy as defense' does not mean I agree with his use of that idea to rationalize his insulting comments.

He wasn't defending himself when he called them pansy-assed. He was being uselessly, needlessly insulting.

He was attacking the Bible more than he was promoting gay rights. That was his problem. Attacking an established religion usually doesn't lead to positive results. He could have had a whole speech without mentioning the Bible and I bet more people would have stayed. I mean I am sure they knew it was a pro gay speech.