Note this is from the Savage Love column by Dan Savage (people write in and ask advice or reply to previous write ins.) The first part is the person writing in the second one is the response by Dan Savage.
L.R. (The person writing in)
I heard an interview with you about your It Gets Better campaign. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bullying. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man who took his own life.
If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man.
To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people.
Please consider your viewpoint, and please be more careful with your words in the future.
L.R.
Dan Savage
I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.
No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: Fuck your feelings.
A question: Do you "support" atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All are legal, all go against Christian and/or traditional ideas about marriage, and yet there's no "Christian" movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or people divorcing and remarrying. Why the hell not?
Sorry, L.R., but so long as you support the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, it's clear that you do believe that some people—straight people—are "better or more worthy" than others.
And—sorry—but you are partly responsible for the bullying and physical violence being visited on vulnerable LGBT children. The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.
Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Gay and lesbian children.
Try to keep up: The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of "faithful Christians," and the lies about us that vomit out from the pulpits of churches that "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays, give your children license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your children—having listened to Mom and Dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry—feel justified in physically abusing the LGBT children they encounter in their schools. You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" queer kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we're seeing the fruits of it: dead children.
Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?
Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what was said and done to Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas and Cody Barker and Seth Walsh—day in, day out for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the image of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call Mom and Dad.
Your thoughts?
L.R. (The person writing in)
I heard an interview with you about your It Gets Better campaign. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bullying. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man who took his own life.
If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man.
To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people.
Please consider your viewpoint, and please be more careful with your words in the future.
L.R.
Dan Savage
I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.
No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: Fuck your feelings.
A question: Do you "support" atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All are legal, all go against Christian and/or traditional ideas about marriage, and yet there's no "Christian" movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or people divorcing and remarrying. Why the hell not?
Sorry, L.R., but so long as you support the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, it's clear that you do believe that some people—straight people—are "better or more worthy" than others.
And—sorry—but you are partly responsible for the bullying and physical violence being visited on vulnerable LGBT children. The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.
Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Gay and lesbian children.
Try to keep up: The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of "faithful Christians," and the lies about us that vomit out from the pulpits of churches that "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays, give your children license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your children—having listened to Mom and Dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry—feel justified in physically abusing the LGBT children they encounter in their schools. You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" queer kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we're seeing the fruits of it: dead children.
Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?
Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what was said and done to Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas and Cody Barker and Seth Walsh—day in, day out for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the image of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call Mom and Dad.
Your thoughts?
Love the Sinner
13/10/2010 04:07:28 PM
- 1181 Views
I have to think about that for a while.
13/10/2010 04:30:56 PM
- 713 Views
Suicide is significantly higher in young gay populations
13/10/2010 05:36:01 PM
- 653 Views
That is not what I think requires thought
13/10/2010 05:56:06 PM
- 657 Views
Nossy I ain't a mind reader, no matter how I try or how much I would do Jean Grey
13/10/2010 06:06:42 PM
- 786 Views
ok now show that it caused by what Christian beliefs *NM*
13/10/2010 06:50:32 PM
- 340 Views
I don't think it's the belief's themselves
14/10/2010 12:20:01 AM
- 696 Views
The churches who encourage people to bully gays should be condemned
14/10/2010 06:43:06 PM
- 687 Views
Ah, that Ghandi quote sure does get around. (which is funny, since he wasn't a Christian)
13/10/2010 05:07:42 PM
- 773 Views
I'm not sure that is true
13/10/2010 05:16:30 PM
- 658 Views
When's the last time you heard the quote attributed to anyone else?
13/10/2010 08:34:10 PM
- 633 Views
That many people don't know the correct origin doesn't change it though
13/10/2010 09:31:13 PM
- 785 Views
I think you are missing his point
13/10/2010 05:45:45 PM
- 739 Views
Question (and this one actually is asking for information )...
13/10/2010 06:42:17 PM
- 573 Views
I have seen gays be bullied before
13/10/2010 07:02:35 PM
- 765 Views
You just didn't listen to a thing I said *NM*
13/10/2010 07:09:29 PM
- 301 Views
why do you believe that? Because I don't agree with what you said?
13/10/2010 07:30:27 PM
- 685 Views
I said you aren't listening to a thing I said, for you didn't respond to anything that I wrote
13/10/2010 07:52:50 PM
- 666 Views
you are not interested in talking to anyone who doesn't agree with you
13/10/2010 09:01:03 PM
- 656 Views
I think there's truth in this as well.
13/10/2010 07:55:00 PM
- 709 Views
churches tend to refelect society as much if not more then they influence it
14/10/2010 07:15:35 PM
- 680 Views
Re: I think you are missing his point
13/10/2010 08:30:42 PM
- 741 Views
Re: I think you are missing his point
13/10/2010 09:55:52 PM
- 747 Views
Re: I think you are missing his point
14/10/2010 03:49:14 PM
- 733 Views
Actually you can very much debate whether homosexuality is a sin on a textual level
14/10/2010 05:49:22 PM
- 766 Views
Re: Actually you can very much debate whether homosexuality is a sin on a textual level
14/10/2010 08:52:24 PM
- 775 Views
Do you know greek or hebrew?
14/10/2010 08:57:32 PM
- 633 Views
I know a few words here and there, but not really. Do you?
14/10/2010 10:46:36 PM
- 760 Views
There's a good case on both sides (try Strong's Concordance, if you haven't, btw. )
15/10/2010 05:09:21 AM
- 1178 Views
You're kind of sidestepping a large part of his point
13/10/2010 05:51:53 PM
- 783 Views
so should Christians abandon other religious conviction to stop bullying?
13/10/2010 07:39:54 PM
- 684 Views
Many good points there; I think I'll let you play Defender of the Faith for a bit.
14/10/2010 08:50:23 AM
- 777 Views
I think he is jackass that does not believe other's can have apoint of view
13/10/2010 06:48:12 PM
- 677 Views
That's right, bullying would go away if we didn't have Christians to make moral judgements on things
13/10/2010 08:11:27 PM
- 767 Views
I mostly agree
13/10/2010 08:19:00 PM
- 833 Views
most of the bullies I remember from school were not known for their regular church attendance
14/10/2010 07:24:06 PM
- 646 Views
Let me see if I can understand where we agree, it is hard to do with all the Sarcasm
13/10/2010 08:48:38 PM
- 717 Views
Meh. He's not entirely incorrect. But not all Christians are anti-gay.
13/10/2010 08:43:04 PM
- 739 Views
It is better to be a Tolkein than a Token
13/10/2010 08:52:09 PM
- 711 Views
If I were a Tolkien liberal Christian, wouldn't that make me an American Roman Catholic? *NM*
13/10/2010 09:18:57 PM
- 279 Views
Interesting
13/10/2010 08:56:46 PM
- 999 Views
His first three sentences were totally unecessary. The rest is conspiracy-laden nonsense.
14/10/2010 12:37:06 AM
- 763 Views
Re:
14/10/2010 03:06:36 AM
- 751 Views
I think Chora has dibs on that bumper sticker.
14/10/2010 09:35:02 AM
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Re:
14/10/2010 11:50:04 PM
- 759 Views
It's nothing at all like cultural relativism.
15/10/2010 01:16:10 AM
- 660 Views
I don't think there is any question...
14/10/2010 04:42:45 AM
- 711 Views
A lot of Christian doctrine states that people cannot know who is worthy of God and it's not up to
14/10/2010 05:41:19 AM
- 709 Views
I think he's reading a lot of things into that letter that aren't there.
14/10/2010 08:22:13 AM
- 661 Views