Connect with us

Dan Savage Does Not Hate You*

Published

on

Dan Savage does not hate you.* I know, because he told me so when I asked him. Last Saturday, Savage delivered the keynote address to “Pro-​Queer Life: Youth Suicide Crisis, Catholic Education, and the Souls of LGBTQ People” at New York City’s beautiful Union Theological Seminary, the oldest independent, multi-denominational seminary in the nation. The event was intended to “call upon the Catholic Church, as a significant provider of education and producer of culture, to seek the well-​being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people.” I’m not sure if the Catholic Church answered, but it was an important event and Savage was extraordinary.

(For those interested, this was part two of a four-part series, called, “More Than A Monologue: Sexual Diversity And The Catholic Church.” The last two events look fascinating as well. You might want to consider going.)

Savage, who doesn’t look anywhere near his 47 years — his birthday was yesterday — as it turns out, in conversation is an amazing amalgam of witty on-the-spot soundbites, and long, ruminating explorations. He is more charming than you might have imagined if you’ve only read his advice columns on love and sex, or his angry rants, which he says he’s good at. (Trust me, he is.)

“I punch people who punch me. I punch back,” he says, with a slight grin.

Savage is animated, and does not appear nervous or stressed in the small bedroom used as a “green room” at the seminary, just minutes before he was to stand in front of hundreds of people to deliver a speech about the Catholic Church and its relationship with the gay community. Here is a man who was raised Roman Catholic by an ordained mother and father, sitting with three journalists, moments away from speaking in a church about his life as a married gay man who — like many — dances on the line between atheism and agnosticism, though he calls himself, “culturally Catholic.”

 

 “It is right-wing fundamentalist asshole monster Christians who are claiming to speak for all Christians, who are fighting the bad fight. Trying to prevent social progress for LGBT Americans.”

 

Perhaps all this appears remarkably easy to Savage because he puts it all out into the open; Savage doesn’t hold any punches. He doesn’t hide anything, and it’s almost impossible to not know where he stands.

“Santorum is a by-product,” Savage quips. And there’s more.

“It’s God Hates Fags with a big smile, but that doesn’t make it not God Hates Fags,” Savage professes about the Marin Foundation, which claims to be “the very first organization that works to build a bridge between the religious and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities in a non-threatening, research and biblically oriented fashion.”

“Marin’s just the same old hate in a brand new bag,” Savage says, pausing, then adding, “all wrapped up in a new bright shiny lie.”

“We will contribute to a culture that beats you down, and then when you’re down and out we’ll condescend to scoop you up, and play the hero, but we won’t change the culture so you’re not winding up homeless,” Savage says of the leaders at Sojourners, a “progressive” Christian publication.

“40% of homeless teenagers are LGBT kids,” he continues. “Most of those kids are thrown out by parents who accept what the religious right tells parents what they should do when their kids come out to them. Reject them and be hostile. Make their love conditional upon their ‘recanting,’ or ‘changing,’ or becoming ‘ex-gay.’ They [Sojourners] should run an ad for a homeless shelter, they should shut the fucking thing down and run a homeless shelter and take some responsibility for the damage they’re creating.”

“The politicization of the church in America is appalling,” is Savage’s global answer to my question about the (greatly misguided and dangerous) move by the right to erase the wall of church and state separation by allowing clergy to support political candidates at the pulpit.

“We’re looking at an increasingly secular society. Increasingly, if you force people to choose between their gay and lesbian friends and relatives and co-workers, and their mega-church and their faith and their pope, they’re going to choose their gay and lesbian friends and neighbors — as well they should.

“As they [the Christian Right] put all their chips down on hate and wanting to roll us back to the 1930s and 40s, they’re going to lose the battle, and they’re going to lose a lot of their congregants.”

Savage, to his benefit, does not like to put up facades. And so, he’s going to call a spade an spade, even if you might not like that, even if it’s not politically-correct. And if need be (maybe) he’ll apologize later.

In preparing for our interview, I went on Twitter and asked my followers, “What do you want me to ask Dan Savage?” The majority of responses were, “Ask him why he hates bisexuals. We’re people too!” and “Why do you hate trans people?”

And so, I said, “Dan, my readers asked me to ask you why you hate bisexual and transgender people.” I thought it might hit a nerve, but instead it hit a wellspring of frustration, and revealed the Dan Savage that I found earlier this year when I called him out for both his comments on marriage, his comments on same-sex relationships, and the timing of those comments. In the end, Savage is interested in getting it right, not PC.

*So, if you’re bi or trans, and think Dan Savage hates you, he does not.

Here’s what Savage told me:

“In 2005, a study came out that showed there were no such things as bisexual arousal patterns in men. They’ve just come out with a new study that says, ‘Oh, we’ve just found bisexual arousal patterns in men,’ and the problem with the original study is they didn’t control for people who were saying they were bi as part of their coming out process, but were actually gay, an people who were lying, and claiming to be bi who were not. And when they went in and controlled for those two groups, and didn’t just accept people at face value who said they were bi — they didn’t take someone’s professed sexual identity as the last word — they were able to document bisexual arousal patterns.

“So, only by behaving as what I would describe as being biphobic for doing — I say some people as transient, some people are identifying as bi early in their coming out process — that gets me called biphobic. Some people are lying — that gets me called biphobic. I’m told by the bi activist crowd you have to accept someone’s professed sexual identity at face value, no questions — and to them I say Ted Haggard. But then, when these researchers turn around and do exactly what I’m accused of doing, being biphobic, for describing as phenomena, they documented bisexual arousal patterns in men. If these researchers had listened to me in 2005, we would have documented bisexual arousal patterns then.

“How do you disprove a charge like you’re transphobic? I’m not afraid of trans people.” Savage then goes into a mimicking voice, knowing not to say, “One of my friends is trans,” but does say that he has a friend who is trans who comes to his house for Christmas. “We hang out all the tie,” Savage says. “I certainly have had a journey in the last 20 years — as have we all — on trans issues. When I started writing Savage Love 20 years ago, and you can yank quotes 15, 18 years ago and flat them up today and say, ‘You know, that’s transphobic,’ I’d probably agree with you. 15 years ago I didn’t know as much as I know now — nor did anybody.”

Afterwards, I found this clip of Dan talking about this very issue, last month:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=AkyIfwFfAyM%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US

But perhaps Savage’s most-poignant moment was this one, which came a little out of nowhere.

“I love the idea that I’m bullying Rick Santorum, because all he wants to do is write anti-gay bigotry into the U.S. Constitution, prevent me from going to my partner’s bedside in a medical emergency, get in a time machine and prevent me from being able to adopt my son, reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t tell. Literally destroy my life. That’s all he wants to do,” Savage says, reeling. But then, he pauses.

“And I made a joke at his expense,” he sums up. “I’m the bad guy,” he says, almost sadly. “And he’s the victim. All he wants to do is beat this to death. How dare we — tease him.”

But taking into account the impetus of the event — to ask the Catholic Church “to seek the well-​being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people” — Savage says, “It is right-wing fundamentalist asshole monster Christians who are claiming to speak for all Christians, who are fighting the bad fight. Trying to prevent social progress for LGBT Americans.”

“And when I get into Tony Perkins, and I condemn Christians, and I buy into his binary rhetoric about, ‘Here’s the gays, here’s the Christians; we’re all enemies,’ what happens is I get a million emails from people, going, (he whispers,) ‘we’re not all like that.’ I call them NALTS — Not. All. Like That.”

“My response to them is, ‘I know you’re not all like that. Tony Perkins doesn’t. Yell at Tony Perkins.'”

Savage points to a study a few years ago that found that the largest growing segment of the U.S. population reported they were “unaffiliated – no faith.”

“When people plowed into those numbers, what they found was a lot of those people were actually Christians who no longer wanted to identify publicly as Christians because they didn’t want to be associated with hate.”

“And that’s a problem for liberal left Christians, that you’ve seceded Christianity in the public square to these motherfuckers,” Savage stresses. “And I can’t fix that.”

“Only left, liberal Christians can — and they can only do it by being as loud and as hyperbolic and as mean and as well-financed as Tony Perkins, the Family Research Council, the American Family Association.”

A few minutes later, we are in a massive cathedral-like stone auditorium and Dan is talking about his mother — a lot. Dan really loved his mother, and shared a glimpse of what it was like growing up Catholic.

Here’s the clip of the first few minutes of Dan’s keynote speech which I took (and take responsibility for the shakiness of — it was on my iPhone,) last week, in which he talks about his mom, and growing up, and the It Gets Better project.

No. Dan Savage does not hate you. But if you’re a right-wing fundamentalist asshole monster Christian who is claiming to speak for all Christians, look out.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=r2qeOWUAkrM%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US

 

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘Fear Small Crowds?’: Trump and Team Mocked as ‘Snowflakes’ for Inauguration Move

Published

11 hours ago

on

January 17, 2025

By

When Donald Trump raises his right hand on Monday to swear an oath to the U.S. Constitution as America’s 47th President, he will do so not as most Presidents have done, outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., but inside. Amid forecasted temperatures in the mid-20s, Trump has decided to move the proceedings inside, a decision that was quickly met with mockery and prompted speculation about crowd size concerns.

Washington, D.C. suffers from — or boasts, depending on personal preference — a wide range of temperatures. In January, temperatures in recent years have ranged from a balmy 80 degrees (2024) to a frigid 5 degrees (2015). And while temperatures in the mid-40s are average for January, 24 degrees, the forecast for Inauguration Day, is not especially unusual.

“Due to the dangerously cold temperatures expected Monday, President-elect Trump’s inauguration is moving indoors. Expect Trump and Vance to be sworn in inside the Capitol Rotunda,” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported Friday. A short time later she added: “Trump confirms it’s moving inside, citing the danger posed to attendees by the cold. He says guests will be brought inside the Capitol.”

READ MORE: Biden Sparks Legal Battle by Declaring Equal Rights Amendment Is Now ‘Law of the Land’

Trump posted a dramatic explanation: “January 20th cannot come fast enough! Everybody, even those that initially opposed a Victory by President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Administration, just want it to happen,” he claimed.

“It is my obligation to protect the People of our Country but, before we even begin, we have to think of the Inauguration itself. The weather forecast for Washington, D.C., with the windchill factor, could take temperatures into severe record lows,” Trump also claimed.

“There is an Arctic blast sweeping the Country. I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way. It is dangerous conditions for the tens of thousands of Law Enforcement, First Responders, Police K9s and even horses, and hundreds of thousands of supporters that will be outside for many hours on the 20th (In any event, if you decide to come, dress warmly!),” he wrote.

“Therefore, I have ordered the Inauguration Address, in addition to prayers and other speeches, to be delivered in the United States Capitol Rotunda, as was used by Ronald Reagan in 1985, also because of very cold weather. The various Dignitaries and Guests will be brought into the Capitol. This will be a very beautiful experience for all, and especially for the large TV audience!”

The temperature during Reagan’s second inauguration was 7 degrees, with a windchill making it feel like -40, Fox News reports.

The decision surprised many.

“It was 28°F when Barack Obama was sworn in at noon on January 20, 2009 before a crowd of nearly two million people,” observed Aaron Fritschner, Deputy Chief of Staff to U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). “NOT INCLUDING THE INSANE WIND CHILL!!”

Susan Rice, a former top advisor to both Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, mocked Trump and team: “SNOWFLAKES,” she snarked, using the common derisive term occasionally leveled at Democrats by the right.

READ MORE: Trump Threatens FBI Office, Alleges ‘Corruption,’ Demands They ‘Preserve All Records’

Some critics suggested the issue was not weather but attendance — just like when Trump was inaugurated before a small crowd in 2017, only to make his first White House Press Secretary’s job to denounce those claims and declare, “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period,” he emphatically and infamously insisted — reportedly at Trump’s direction.

“Moving the inauguration inside due to freezing temps takes crowd size ‘off the table’ as Trump’s second term begins,” CNN’s Brian Stelter, citing his colleague Dana Bash, noted.

Sam Stein of The Bulwark suggested that President-elect Trump has been trying to get more people to show up: “Trump has been running twitter ads to get folks to come to the inauguration. If they’re now moving it indoors, you have to imagine folks who booked travel will be left distraught.”

David Axelrod, senior advisor and chief campaign strategist to President Barack Obama, also mocked Trump.

“In ’61, John F. Kennedy was Inaugurated on the Capitol steps, in windchills of 7 degrees. It was almost as cold for Obama in ’09. In fairness, Trump IS more than 3 decades older than JFK & Obama were. Or did he just fear small crowds?”

Former Obama Deputy White House Press Secretary Bill Burton, offering a history lesson, suggested there aren’t a large number of people interested in attending Trump’s second inauguration. He wrote “Tell me you have a crowd size problem without telling me you have a crowd size problem. It was colder for Obama’s and JFK’s inaugurations and JFK didn’t even wear a coat.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘My Eyes and Ears’: Trump Names Ambassadors to Hollywood, Critics Question Motives

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

News

Biden Sparks Legal Battle by Declaring Equal Rights Amendment Is Now ‘Law of the Land’

Published

13 hours ago

on

January 17, 2025

By

President Joe Biden, just days before he will exit the White House, announced on Friday that the Equal Rights Amendment, which would enshrine in the U.S. Constitution equal rights for women, is now the 28th Amendment and “the law of the land.” Although he has some legal scholars backing this declaration, experts say there are still legal hurdles and a legal battle to overcome.

“Today I’m affirming what I have long believed and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: The 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex,” President Biden wrote. “I have supported the Equal Rights Amendment for more than 50 years and have long been clear that no one should be discriminated against based on their sex. We must affirm and protect women’s full equality once and for all.”

“On January 27, 2020,” President Biden explained in his statement on the White House website, “the Commonwealth of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The American Bar Association (ABA) has recognized that the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution as the 28th Amendment. I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens FBI Office, Alleges ‘Corruption,’ Demands They ‘Preserve All Records’

“It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people. In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.”

CNN calls Biden’s announcement “a last-minute move that some believe could pave the way to bolstering reproductive rights.”

“It will, however, certainly draw swift legal challenges – and its next steps remain extremely unclear as Biden prepares to leave office.”

The news network also credits U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) with “making a major push for certification, saying in a memo to interested parties that it would give Biden a way to ‘codify women’s freedom and equality without needing anything from a bitterly divided and broken Congress’ in the aftermath of the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.”

In 2020, after Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, the necessary requirement of three-fourths ratification may have been met.

As The Brennan Center for Justice noted just days later, “there are still hurdles in the ERA’s path. The ratification deadlines that Congress set after it approved the amendment have lapsed, and five states have acted to rescind their prior approval. These raise important questions, and now it is up to Congress, the courts, and the American people to resolve them.”

READ MORE: ‘My Eyes and Ears’: Trump Names Ambassadors to Hollywood, Critics Question Motives

Congress could try to waive the deadline and try to ignore the states that rescinded their ratification.

President Biden did not order the National Archivist to certify the ERA as the 28th Amendment. Some have suggested neither has the legal authority to do so at this point.

But some have also suggested the deadline was unconstitutional.

The Associated Press called President Biden’s declaration “a symbolic statement that’s unlikely to alter a decades-long push for gender equality,” and “unlikely to have any impact.”

“Presidents do not have any role in the amendment process. The leader of the National Archives had previously said that the amendment cannot be certified because it wasn’t ratified before a deadline set by Congress,” the AP added. It noted that the National Archives said, “the underlying legal and procedural issues have not changed.”

READ MORE: DeSantis’ Rubio Replacement Seen as Trump Loyalist and MAGA Culture Warrior

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

News

Trump Threatens FBI Office, Alleges ‘Corruption,’ Demands They ‘Preserve All Records’

Published

15 hours ago

on

January 17, 2025

By

Just days before he will be sworn into office, President-elect Donald Trump is alleging the FBI has been engaging in “corruption,” after learning the Bureau has shut down its “DEI Office,” officially the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. The FBI has a lengthy, ongoing investigation into the January 6, 2021 insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol. It also conducted an intensive investigation into Trump’s removal and refusal to return classified documents, including top secret national security materials, and executed a lawful search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence to retrieve some of those documents.

“We demand that the FBI preserve and retain all records, documents, and information on the now closing DEI Office—Never should have been opened and, if it was, should have closed long ago. Why is it that they’re closing one day before the Inauguration of a new Administration? The reason is, CORRUPTION!” Trump alleged, offering no proof or evidence, in a social media post Thursday evening.

Trump pointed to a report from Mediaite: “FBI Shuttered DEI Office Ahead of Trump’s Inauguration.”

READ MORE: ‘My Eyes and Ears’: Trump Names Ambassadors to Hollywood, Critics Question Motives

“While on the campaign trail, Trump stated he would end ‘wokeness’ and ‘leftist indoctrination’ by dismantling diversity programs and imposing fines on colleges ‘up to the entire amount of their endowment,” the Mediaite report reads. “More recently, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) sent a letter to outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray stating the agency’s DEI practices ‘endanger Americans.’ Blackburn made those comments shortly after the New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans.”

The Bureau’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion “was created in 2012 to provide guidance and implement programs that promote a diverse and inclusive workplace that allows all employees to succeed and advance,” according to an archived version of its website. That page, which stresses, “Different backgrounds. One mission,” appears to no longer be accessible from the FBI’s website, and instead forwards to the main page.

“The FBI’s efforts to diversify are crucial to creating an inclusive workforce and to being increasingly effective and efficient in our investigations and keeping the American public safe,” FBI Chief Diversity Officer Scott McMillion said in a quote on that page.

READ MORE: DeSantis’ Rubio Replacement Seen as Trump Loyalist and MAGA Culture Warrior

Apparently baseless accusations against DEI abound.

The New Republic notes that the “FBI came under fire recently as many on the right openly blamed the deadly truck attack on New Year’s Day in New Orleans on the agency’s DEI policies.”

“The priority of the last four years has been DEI, not IEDs,” New York Republican Representative Dan Meuser had told Fox News,” TNR reported.

“The ODI office isn’t closing because of corruption,” TNR added, “like Trump is claiming in all caps on Truth Social. It’s likely closing for the same reason Walmart, Meta, McDonald’s, and others are reneging on DEI policy: Trump is back.”

READ MORE: Trump Ran on Promise to Lower Grocery Prices — Few Americans Now Believe He Will

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.