Zasteva: Notabunny: nsfw lingo

After watching that I have to say that it was honest, clear, and only offensive to someone who is unable to hear their ideology challenged. People started walking out almost at the moment that he began to criticize the Bible.

Nor did he call people pansy-*sses, he referred to their behavior.

I guess overall I would describe his words as chiding, or gently mocking. He certainly wasn't bullying.

Those people were planning on walking out before they ever walked in. Hell, Savage is practically complementary to modern Christianity as he notes they've had the sense to ignore all the other ridiculousness in the bible (shellfish, slavery, virgin wife getting stoned to death, etc) but not the ones regarding sexuality.

thegod082: aerojockey: Savage is a farking asshole. (Not intended.)

The douchebag goes under a pretense of speaking out against bullying and uses it to launch a political tirade against something only tangentially related to bullying (he could have decried the use of the Bible to justify bullying without going into a anti-Christian tirade), and then does what he ostensibly came to preach against when people take offense.

He's just another holier-than-thou "do as I say not as I do" hypocrite, no different than the people he attacks, just on the other side. And you people defend this jackass.

Presumably some of the Christians in the audience knew who he was, and came anyway to support the message he was supposed to have shared. [sarcasm]I guess now they know better than to trust gays.[/sarcasm]

I pretty much agree with this.

I'm not gay but I consider myself very liberal, and although I haven't listened to all of his podcasts or read all of his columns, I've listened and read enough to determine that I think this guy's a holier-than-thou prick.

I also agree with this sentiment.

I'm not gay and I am Christian, yet I don't care how he lives his life that bothers me. Bullying the people you feel are bullying you will never win the fight. Act in the manner in which you would want to be treated. You can't force someone to get the point, but you can make it worse. I have coworkers that are gay and a few that are atheist. We don't attack each other about our beliefs. We have discussed them and we leave it at that. We get along just fine without anybody causing disruptions at work or in the breakroom. I will say that I have as much use for Savage as I do for a equally loud obnoxious southern baptist. You don't have to accept the other person's beliefs, just accept that that person feels just as strongly as you do. except hypocrites, they just suck.

Inaditch: cman: truthseeker2083: cman: No offense, but you may just be taken a bit more seriously if you were to act professional in an environment such as that. You are supposed to point out the flaws in the other group, not give them fodder to fight against you.

No offense, but the gay community has taken about as much as they can, and having tried civil tones before, some people just snap at the stupid. That's what happened according to this article (I woild like to see another source, as a 'culture wars' 'reporter' from fox news smacks of bias, but...). Sometimes, even the most professional of people can have enough of it, and say 'fark it, enough is enough'. When he's pointed out their mistakes thousands of times, I don't care if he did snap, he's handled the right-wing fundie's crap better than most people would.

They are gonna use what happened there as propaganda for their holy war of morality. They will twist it and spin it to fit their own agenda. I know it is difficult dealing with Christians, but you have to maintain a cool head when you are a leader in your cause.

If you want to win christians over to your cause, you cannot do it in this way. All you are doing is driving a further wedge between your two communities. Be the adult on this one and leave the childish things to the Christians

Agreed. If you want things to get better, you have to take the high road. Every time.

"They're ass holes all the time, so it's ok if we're assholes once in a while". Except it's not. Every time you're an ass hole you lose ground.

Yeah, this. I'm as liberal as they come, and I used to enjoy Savage's column and his books. He's turning into an aggressive, eccentric douche in his old age, though.

Keep in mind he was not addressing adults, he was addressing a room full of high school journalism students. That he resorted to bullying was quixotic; additionally, Christian-bashing notwithstanding, one does not use sexytalk, innuendo and expletives to entertain the young'uns, even if one is a nationally-syndicated sex advice columnist.

Expect an uber-defensive statement from Le Sauvage, complete with "they must be fat" comments. Dan, you are not helping.

Capo Del Bandito: peterquince: It WAS a seminar where others *wanted* to learn about acceptance and whatnot. These high school kids showed up, invited, and voluntarily. And then they walked out snickering and smug. My personal theory is that they planned this all along. Notice how they left en masse

Dickery all around it sounds like.

Sorry, can't see the link, I'm at work, the video's blocked.

Dude should be preaching about acceptance and whatnot. Not telling another person their belief system is wrong. Again, that's just like Christians telling others their lifestyle is wrong.

And this is where I burst into the chorus of "People are People".

Just because you think he should be preaching tolerance doesn't make it show. For my money "let's all ignore each other so we can get along" is WAY less valid than "stop using the Bible to harass people until they literally die."

If someone's viewpoint is incompatible with living in the 20th century, then there's nothing wrong with calling them out on it. He was asked to give his viewpoint. He gave the same viewpoint he always does. He provided the service he was hired to provide.

GORDON: With all the "GOP mouth breathers" stuff I am seeing here, I always find it disconcerting how much the hard, enlightened left is willing to dehumanize other people.

Adults shouldn't be bullying kids, period. Shame on him, and a lot of you.

The author of this article didn't get both sides of the story, there was no mention of a quote from Dan Savage NOR an "we attempted to contact Dan Savage for comment but did not hear back". That makes this not really a news piece, it makes it an editorial hit piece.

Anyway, people are people regardless of political ideas, people on the left are just as prone to engage in asinine behavior as those on the right.

Brubold: Uncle Tractor: Brubold: The New Testament replaces the law with grace but the law is still a foundation for faith. However there are some laws that were directly thrown out, such as the one about shellfish and other forbidden foods, in the New Testament.

[i560.photobucket.com image 400x459]

Very true but Acts 10 (Peter's vision), Romans 14, and Timothy 4 all teach that all foods are now acceptable through God's grace. So the law is still in effect. The foods are still unclean but God's grace makes them clean for us to eat. One of the main reasons we ask God to bless our food before eating it.

So I can ask god to bless my union with my partner and it's all good? Sweet! If it's still unclean and I know that (just like you and the food) then I get a pass, because I've prayed and it's all good.

"I thought this would be about anti-bullying," Tuttle told Fox news. "It turned into a pointed attack on Christian beliefs."

For some self-professed Christians, I can see where an anti-bullying speech would look pretty much like a direct attack. They see it as their right to mistreat gays, among other people.

"This illustrates perfectly what we've been saying all along: Too many times in the name of 'tolerance,' Christian students find their faith being openly mocked and belittled in educational environments."

Your religion is based on the idea that a virgin had a baby. It regularly tries to keep science from being taught in schools because science doesn't match up with the BS in your bible. That deserves a little mocking.

Gays have laws written to keep them from marrying, to keep them out of the military, to keep them from being treated the same as everyone else. That's a lot worse than a little mocking.

rynthetyn: but clearly the fact that there are no videos and

No videos? Notabunny linked the video, and others have repeated that link. One more time can't hurt.

His "mocking" comes down to "The biblical argument against gays is minimal, and people already ignore the parts in the bible about shellfish and stoning women who aren't virgins when they get married. The bible was wrong about slavery. So using a few lines out of the old testament to justify hatred of gays makes no sense". The kids started walking out as soon as they heard the word bible, they didn't care what he had to say. Haters gonna hate.

Aigoo: The fact that I am Christian and actively distance myself from those who proclaim Christianity but do not live it does not make me a pile of shiat while Dan Savage is being an asshole.

You were sounding like a fairly reasonable person. Then you decided to start calling him an asshole, which convinced me that you are, in fact, that pile of shiat that you deny being.

Notabunny: nsfw lingo

Oh, gee, I'm shocked that what actually happened was being misrepresented by the intrepid Fox spinmasters.

It really is just a case of homophobes can dish it out in spades through rhetoric, violence and legislating away people's civil rights, but they can't even handle the smallest amount of non-violent, calm, and rational criticism in return.

People like Dan Savage are the reason WHY gays are bullied in school.

lack of warmth: Bullying the people you feel are bullying you will never win the fight.

He expressed disbelief at their reactions. That's not bullying. That's questioning their behavior.

phoolishone: That he resorted to bullying was quixotic;

He expressed disbelief at their reactions. That's not bullying. That's questioning their behavior.

Mouser: People like Dan Savage are the reason WHY gays are bullied in school.

Yeah, they should just remember their place, like those uppity blah people...

Mouser: People like Dan Savage are the reason WHY gays are bullied in school.

No. People who bully gay kids are the reason why gays are bullied in school.

/Wives who burn dinner are the reason why wives who burn dinner get black eyes.

Sounds like someone should have read his own message. After all aren't verbal harassment and attack part of bullying? Or is it ok because he's gay?

As a Christian who supports gay rights, this thread (and Savage's speech, if he really said those things) is disappointing.

/welcome to Fark
//there are a shiatload of us, btw
///Jesus' message: "Stop being assholes to one another"

Notabunny: nsfw lingo

That was NOTHING like what the Fox article said. He didn't even blink when the kids walked out, and then a bit later he said, "I apologize if I offended anyone, but I have the right to defend myself." I think he should have left the "bullshiat" out of it, since it was a HS crowd, but note their reaction--as soon as he said something like "The Bible got it wrong" (with lots of explanations) they just got up and left. LALALALALALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU. But those "good Christians" will now insist on EVERYONE hearing THEM for the next six months as they cry about how they were bullied by the gay guy.

I don't know much about Savage, I understand he can be pretty abrasive, but I was sure expecting a lot more than after I read the Fox bullshiat. OMG, I said bullshiat. I must be bullying that "reporter."

anarchy_x: Sounds like someone should have read his own message. After all aren't verbal harassment and attack part of bullying? Or is it ok because he's gay?

Watch the video. The article is lying about the situation.

Merry Sunshine: As a Christian who supports gay rights, this thread (and Savage's speech, if he really said those things) is disappointing.

/welcome to Fark
//there are a shiatload of us, btw
///Jesus' message: "Stop being assholes to one another"

Watch the video. The article is lying about the situation.

Did they hire Bucky Bailey'sBully Busters?

SkunkWerks: It doesn't always get better. And there are more and much better reasons to maintain a sense of dignity and self-respect than some unrealistic hope that life will stop pelting you with lemons some day and start pelting you with hookers and beers.

When you get away from you parents, you can choose where to live and who to hang out with. May not be paradise, but way better than being bullied in school and by family members.

Merry Sunshine: As a Christian who supports gay rights, this thread (and Savage's speech, if he really said those things) is disappointing.

Watch the video. I can't imagine a non fundie being offended by what he said. Hell, most Christians I know would agree with him.

I don't really get the problem with this. If you are stupid enough to think the Bible is 100% literally true, you are a jackass and deserve to be ridiculed, especially if you use the Bible to justify ignorant political beliefs. I never got how anyone took Noah's Ark seriously. How are you going to get two of every animal around the world on a boat, and not have them eat each other, or bury each other in their own shiat?

Just adding my voice that:

1. Dan Savage said nothing inappropriate
2. He was an entirely appropriate choice for this conference
3. High schoolers have all heard the words he used before
4. The "offended" students started walking before he said the supposedly offensive stuff
5. Fox News and this "writer" intentionally lied and took things out of context and quite visibly encouraged people to NOT look at the material for themselves but get all butthurt based upon the lies reported
6. There is no culture war. It's a myth.
7. The progressive community often does not use the word "tolerance" except when asking Christians about why they don't practice what they preach. I use the term acceptance.
8. I don't care about changing the minds of people who want genocide against gays et al., and Savage doesn't either. What he's been working on is influencing the moderates/undecided who these people abuse through guilt. These are the people who make or break new laws, etc.
9. My respect for Dan Savage has increased this morning. Go Dan!

abb3w: relcec: it is not even slightly kosher to go yell at a bunch of highschool kids through a PA System at a f*cking antibullying seminar of all places that their religion is "bullshiat" a dozen times.

I have to say I agree. That part of the message is being spread pretty effectively elsewhere by the New Atheists, and doing that at a school assembly is perilously close to an establishment clause infringement.

Watch the video. The article is lying about the situation.

Also, this was a seminar - wasn't provided by a government institution.

badhatharry: They are winning ground in the culture war. But you can't offend the religious beliefs of the majority of the population and expect to win. I think they are better off appealing to the US Constitution and the freedom of religion. It protects minority religious (or anti-religious) beliefs. Even if you disagree with homosexuality, they still have the same rights as everyone else.

My own personal opinion - we only win the fight against the bigots when they get sick of the fight and sit down and shut up. They're fighting an active war against us. We've only been parrying until they get tired out. Now that they're starting to quiet down we're stepping up to repair some of the damage that they've done. Any time someone stands up against it - whether artfully and effectively or not - is a good thing.

cman: No offense, but you may just be taken a bit more seriously if you were to act professional in an environment such as that. You are supposed to point out the flaws in the other group, not give them fodder to fight against you.

Fark u

rynthetyn: TheXerox: In the times I have seen, heard, or read his material, Dan Savage has almost always skewed things into a "you're either with me or against me" thing and this seems to be no exception. Turning an anti-bully speech into a platform for bullying a belief which is different from your own is hypocritical and dishonest. If this was as bad as reported then there will likely be clips of this floating around on youtube within the next few days if there aren't some already.


/Christian
//no problem with gay people
///has a problem with bullies and hypocrisy

One, this happened several weeks ago, April 13th according to the school newspaper write up posted earlier in the thread. Fox News just discovered it and decided to make an issue of it, but clearly the fact that there are no videos and that it took Fox a whole two weeks to find out about it and complain strongly suggests this is a Fox manufactured story. Not to mention the fact that Dan Savage himself mentioned the event on his blog, and the only thing he addressed was that there were some complaints from attendees who thought he was going to be focusing on journalism when in fact he'd been invited to talk about It Gets Better.

Two. I've had it with your brand of moral equivalence that pretends that Dan Savage calling bigots out on their bigotry is somehow equally as bad as the bigotry itself. There is no middle ground when the one side is telling children that they're broken and damaged and going to hell. The fact is that the conservative Evangelical church is contributing to the bullying of gay kids, and those perceived to be gay, and you can't address the bullying problem while ignoring the massive elephant in the room that there is a significant segment of Evangelical Christianity that is actively contributing to the bullying. Ask my (straight, married) brother about the time when he was a teenager that he went to our church's men's beer and wings night wearing a pink polo shirt and got relentlessly mocked by grown men making homophobic comments. Or ask him about how all of the church people he'd known from the time he was little, people he thought were friends, stopped having anything to do with him because half the church had been gossiping behind my family's back and decided that he must be gay because of his taste in clothes and started shunning him as a result. Or maybe you'd like to consider the elder at my old church who, in the course of teaching a Sunday School class, proclaimed that he thought it would be more merciful if God "called homosexuals home." Since you say you're a Christian, I'm sure that you know that talking about God "calling someone home" means that that God should just strike the person dead. I don't ping anybody's gaydar so I flew under the radar growing up in the conservative Evangelical world, I flew under the radar enough that I have no doubt whatsoever what everyone in my past life thinks of me as a human being and I'm never going to be able to completely get the messages out of my mind and not know exactly what they're thinking as they pretend to be nice to me. So don't go pulling any moral equivalency because Dan Savage is absolutely right to call out the evangelical Christians who ignore what the Bible says on all sorts of issues but then stake their claim and make their stand refusing to budge from the claim that if you're gay you're doomed to hell. Never mind that it's terrible hermeneutics, never mind that kids are killing themselves because of that message, they've got to keep insisting that they're right and to keep on acting like bullying kids and mocking them for their clothes will keep them on the path of heterosexuality, all sense of empathy be damned.

It's high time for straight Christians who claim to not be like the conservative Evangelicals to speak up and condemn them for their anti-gay bigotry. They're not going to listen to me, I just get written off as a degenerate trying to justify my sin, but if you're really concerned about how Christians are being viewed, don't go attacking Dan Savage for stating the truth about their bigotry, go call out the bigots within the church.

I think I like you. :3

Those teenagers hd a point. If you are committing gay sex with Babylonian temple priests to promote fertility you are committing a sin. The sin in question though tends to be worshiping another idol above the Lord and already covered elsewhere.

Leviticus is almost fully about banning religious practices to prevent Jewish people from straying back to foreign people's divinities back in the bronze age, so of course we can now twist it to mean whatever we want and just take the bits we want and forget the rest. Otherwise we have to put most the major religious figures in the US to death for committing false prophecy and stoning women for trying to preach.

I find it amusing that this "It gets better" guy seems to think getting better means turning into a bully. Seems a lot of you on Fark seem to think the same. Not sure that's how it should work though.

relcec: Mrtraveler01: Kurmudgeon: Oh look, Fark is having a Christian bashing thread, we hadn't had one of those for awhile.
Still ugly, still prejudicial, still factually wrong.

Look up where Christ said people were being "stiff necked" and wrong.
Leviticus is Levite priest law, same people who crucified Christ.
But go ahead, attack Jesus without even realizing He was punished same as you.
Oh wait, no they killed him, it was worse.
Don't care what you do with your genitals or who you associate with, stop using that as your excuse to hate.
I'm sure this will fall on deaf ears.

Yes we know you're persecuted.

I'm a Christian too but it's high time we start calling these assholes out. They cry when I pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow but yet they do the same farking thing.

Fark them. They're all disgraces to Christianity and no where did Jesus say we should be total assholes to people just because we don't like them. In fact he taught us the OPPOSITE!!!

/rant off

you know what? that is absolutely reasonable.
the problem is he didn't go seek out and find Westboro Baptist Church and scream at them for using Leviticus to attack homosexuals. he wasn't even having a debate with an adult theologian and started to yell Leviticus is bullshiat.
he basically just started screaming the bible is bullshiat a dozen times to a bunch of highschool kids at a f*cking antibullying seminar.

You are a liar. The video that has been linked several times directly contradicts everything you are saying.

Savage did not scream "the bible is bullshiat" He said quite calmly that there is a lot of bullshiat in the bible that modern christians ignore and that they should add their the anti-gay passages to that list.

You. Are. A. Liar.

Hes right though.

I fail to see the problem here.

He's right.



/reused for emphasis

Excuse my threadjack, but my brother became a "Christian" later in life, and I am clueless as to what this means to him, or how it affects his thinking. (And I put it in quotations not to insult Christians, but because I don't farking know what it means.) It seems that he uses it to do good things for some people--he's been good to me, I won't lie, and we aren't close--but he also uses it to excuse the worst kinds of bigotry and power trips of other "Christians", because that's their beliefs or something, and he's not supposed to judge. Them, anyway.....

I have discussed this with a friend who is also "Christian" and who actually seems to live in a very tolerant way. She doesn't know what the word farking means anymore either. What she's found is that people have used it against her to promote their own power trips, because they're "Christians" and have the right to, or to put her down because "they thought she was a Christian" but then she didn't live up to their standards of what a Christian is supposed to be. In their judgement. They didn't like her too much after the supposedly good Christian left her abusive husband and started calling them on their 12th century beliefs.

What a lot of confusion over--I don't even know. What I see is that any group of people who depend too heavily on being identified with A Group, no matter which one it is, also need to lord their little club over others. Doesn't matter who, pick someone and proclaim that Your Club is better. And religious people tend to be the worst of the bunch, since their club is sponsored by God, and how could anyone else be better, or even question what the club says? Not only that, but if your club is attacked for trying to act better than everyone else's, you are absolutely justified in being heavily butthurt, because religious belief is sacred and not to be questioned. This automatically makes religious belief the trump card in all the card games, and even a guy as obnoxious as Dan Savage can't win that pot.

This is why I belong to no group, I don't want to be part of your club. I'm seriously questioning my affiliation with the human race, but it's OK, I'll be dead one day, and no one has to come to my funeral. In fact, I don't believe in them.

MDGeist: I find it amusing that this "It gets better" guy seems to think getting better means turning into a bully. Seems a lot of you on Fark seem to think the same. Not sure that's how it should work though.

Watch the video. The article is lying about the situation.

UndeadPoetsSociety: Inaditch:
Agreed. If you want things to get better, you have to take the high road. Every time.

"They're ass holes all the time, so it's ok if we're assholes once in a while". Except it's not. Every time you're an ass hole you lose ground.

fark you, asshole. Based on the evidence, the right has been winning for quite a while by being assholes, and the farkers who are pushing this anti-gay bullshiat certainly haven't stopped because we've been polite to them. Taking the 'high road' has gotten exactly nowhere, and it's time to start calling people on their bullshiat in unequivocal terms, including yours.

Yeah, nothing good has come of the civil discourse. DADT is still firmly in place, and there is still not one state in the USA where gay marriage is legal.

Keep farking that rooster.

peterquince: lack of warmth: Bullying the people you feel are bullying you will never win the fight.

He expressed disbelief at their reactions. That's not bullying. That's questioning their behavior.

I think you fail at understanding bullying. Intentially yelling hurtful things against someones beliefs, rallying support of the majority into anger against a few till they leave and then attacking them further for not sitting through more of it. He lowered himself to the level of those he was speaking against and it is abusive. He didn't consider the intent of those kids being there, instead abused them for having their feelings hurt. It would be bullying in your mind if a southern baptist did this same thing to a small group of gay teens, so why is this guy so much better? I will stay just as far away from overzealous nutjob hateful people as I can, gay or Christian.

s2s2s2: Yeah, nothing good has come of the civil discourse. DADT is still firmly in place, and there is still not one state in the USA where gay marriage is legal.

Keep farking that rooster.

But there's been a lot more than civil discourse. I mean, the modern gay rights movement started with a riot.