April 29, 2012
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Some Young Journalists Walk Out on Dan Savage
(The whole speech was 90 minutes. I have yet to actually find the whole speech anywhere but this is the part that fox news is running with that claiming christian persecution. It sounds like it is ok for christians to use the bible to bash LGBTQ people but it is christian persecution to call them on it. What are your thoughts?)
The Bible. We’ll just talk about the Bible for a second. People often point out that they can’t help it — they can’t help with the anti-gay bullying, 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, 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. 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’t say “Christians don’t own people.” Paul talks about how Christians own people.
We ignore what the Bible says about slavery, because the Bible got slavery wrong. Tim — uh, Sam Harris, in A Letter To A Christian Nation, points out that the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong. Slavery. What are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? One hundred percent.
The Bible says that if your daughter’s not a virgin on her wedding night — if a woman isn’t a virgin on her wedding night, she shall be dragged to her father’s 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’re not virgins. At least not yet. We don’t know where the GOP is going these days.
People are dying because people can’t clear this one last hurdle. They can’t get past this one last thing in the Bible about homosexuality.
Um, one other thing I wanna talk about is — [chuckles] — so, you can tell the Bible guys in the hall that they can come back now, because I’m done beating up the Bible. It’s funny, as someone who’s on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-assed some people react when you push back.
I apologize if I 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 we must live by the code of Leviticus on this one issue and no other.
Do you think that the people who walked out were being good journalists? Do you think it was ok for them to walk out and be offended?
Comments (17)
They can be offended if they want to but I would not have walked out .
@seedsower - Yeah, I am sure that Journalists often have to listen to stuff that they think is total bunk. It is part of their job to sit and listen and then write about it.
A journalist should not walk out. If an “event” occurred, they would have to explain to their editor why they were not there.
I think Dan Savage is a narcicisstic asshole (and certainly was not sorry about hurt feelings, lol), but he spoke the exact truth here, and I don’t see how people can find this offensive.
We had lessons exactly like this in history class at school. It’s called basic critical (logical) thinking skills. I’ve seen people defend themselves on this argument…usually they talk themsleves out by saying they just want to help them or something, or that they come up with another bible quote that negates the ones you mention. Is it clear they walked out bc of being offended?
I think the people who left the speech were pussies, and Dan Savage is an asshole for being a shithead to them. Dumbassery all around.
Dan Savage had not been allowed access to those types of speaking engagements in the past, so he kinda just “cut loose” and strayed from the true topic of journalism. It was a sort of “FU” to the groups who hadn’t allowed him in the past. I guess now he knows why. Also, the kids he was speaking to were high schoolers–I guess there was sexual innuendo and swearing and some of the kids just didn’t feel comfortable (whether they were Christian or not only matters incidentally). When you’re talking to minors, stick to the topic. Sure you can and should discuss GLBT issues, but I guarantee they would have stayed if he hadn’t been swearing and leering at them. I like Dan Savage, and I agree with his message, but he didn’t need to unload his anger on a bunch of teens who thought they were going to learn something about journalism and didn’t. I think this reflects badly only on him.
@Lovegrove - They were high school kids there with their advisors. Does that make a difference? I really think it does.
@arenfro - So the “journalists” were not journalists but teenage school kids?
I’ve advised high schoolers before, and I’ve been a journalist for about 12 years now. It’s important to expose kids to important issues. But this was a keynote speech at a National High School Journalism conference. Perhaps he could have at LEAST told them something they hadn’t already heard, like perhaps the incredible impact his “It Gets Better” campaign had. Now THAT’s grassroots journalism.
@Lovegrove - That’s correct. At a high school journalism convention, not a separate event they were supposed to report.
What you’re seeing is the outrage of a dying system. It’s no longer acceptable to discriminate against gays or women and they can’t stand it. It’s a loss of control and power, as well as a sense that somehow the world is more corrupt for not allowing them to rule over it (and push their idea of morality upon everyone else) any longer. They think we need them to save us from ourselves. The world did well for thousands of years before christianity, it will be just as well long after it has faded into obscurity. Expect to see more foot stomping, tantrums and walkouts.
It sounds like it is ok for christians to use the bible to bash LGBTQ people but it is christian persecution to call them on it. What are your thoughts?
Dan has the right to his opinion and they have the right to walk out just as if there was a person speaking against homosexuality and a lot of homosexuals decided to walk out.
Americans like to use slavery as a buzz word for easily linking biblical ideals with poor ethics. Frankly, the issue of slavery worldwide and throughout history is not as ethically poor as the examples we are most familiar with from the trans atlantic slave trade. That is to say that I, a black person completely informed and having personal feelings on the issue of slavery, do not believe that the bible endorses the incarnation of slavery that is brought to mind when most people hear that word, which leads to a vague or intentionally misleading argument on the part of atheists and anti-theists. That said, slavery in every incarnation save for its most vile (and recent?) form is up for debate as an ethics issue.
Another Christian and Bible basher. No news there.
I don’t know the total context of what’s happening here, but I don’t think that Dan said anything extraordinarily offensive. He pointed out inaccuracies in the Bible. The part about slavery justification is historical fact. If you can’t deal with that (to the point where you have to walk out of the room when someone talks about it), you’re gonna have a lot of trouble in the real world when you encounter people who don’t believe the same way you do. I don’t always agree with everything he has to say on relationships (and I do read his column regularly), but he’s absolutely making sense here.
This is about anti-bullying, and he’s calling the Bible bullshit. Okay, so what if he thinks it’s “bullshit”, he shouldn’t be turning an anti-bullying seminar into a bash-fest on religion. Isn’t that in it’s own way bullying people and insulting them for holding a belief in something? He could’ve said something to the effect that it’s okay to be religious, but be RESPECTFUL. He is a hypocrite. He was completely disrespectful and was singling out religion. Not cool and not leading by example!
And while he thinks religion is “bullshit” or wrong; some people still think and always WILL think that homosexuality isn’t natural and sinful in God’s eyes. Homosexuals aren’t the only ones judged. Religious are mocked and judged JUST as much.