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Dan Savage Does Not Hate You*

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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

 

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News

‘Repercussions’: Democrats and Republicans Stand Against ‘Pro-Putin’ House GOP Faction

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April 18, 2024

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Some House Democrats and House Republicans are coming together toward a common opponent: far-right “pro-Putin” hardliners in the House Republican conference, who appear to be led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Congresswoman Greene has been threatening to oust the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Last month she filed a “motion to vacate the chair.” If she chooses to call it up she could force a vote on the House floor to try to remove Speaker Johnson.

House Democrats say they are willing to vote against ousting Johnson, as long as the Speaker puts on the floor desperately needed and long-awaited legislation to fund aid to Ukraine and Israel. Johnson has refused to put the Ukraine aid bill on the floor for months, but after Iran attacked Israel Johnson switched gears. Almost all Democrats and a seemingly large number of Republicans want to pass the Ukraine and Israel aid packages.

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

Forgoing the possibility of installing Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker, which is conceivable given Johnson’s now one-vote majority, Democrats say if Johnson does the right thing, they will throw him their support.

“I think he’ll be in good shape,” to get Democrats to support him, if he puts the Ukraine aid bill on the floor, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) told CNN Thursday. “I would say that there’s a lot of support for the underlying bills. I think those are vital.”

“If these bills were delivered favorably, and the aid was favorably voted upon, and Marjorie Taylor Greene went up there with a motion to remove him, for instance, I think there’s gonna be a lot of Democrats that move to kill that motion,” Congressman Krishnamoorthi said. “They don’t want to see him getting punished for doing the right thing.”

“I think it is a very bad policy of the House to allow one individual such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is an arsonist to this House of Representatives,” U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) told CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane, when asked about intervening to save Johnson. He added he doesn’t want her “to have so much influence.”

U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, one of several Republicans who won their New York districts in 2022, districts that were previously held by Democrats, opposes Greene’s motion to vacate – although he praised the Georgia GOP congresswoman.

CNN’s Manu Raju reports Republicans “say it’s time to marginalize hardliners blocking [their] agenda.”

D’Esposito, speaking to Raju, called for “repercussions for those who completely alienate the will of the conference. The people gave us the majority because they wanted Republicans to govern.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, like D’Esposito is another New York Republican who won a previously Democratic seat in 2022. Lawler spoke out against the co-sponsor of Greene’s motion to vacate, U.S. Rep. Tim Massie (R-KY), along with two other House Republicans who are working to block the Ukraine aid bill via their powerful seats on the Rules Committee.

U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), a former Navy pilot, blasted Congresswoman Greene.

RELATED: ‘They Want Russia to Win So Badly’: GOP Congressman Blasts Far-Right House Republicans

“Time is of the essence” for Ukraine, Rep. Sherrill told CNN Wednesday night. “The least we can do is support our Democratic allies, especially given what we know Putin to do. To watch a report and to think there are people like Marjorie Taylor Greene on the right that are pro-Putin? That are pro-Russia? It is really shocking.”

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), as NCRM reported Thursday, had denounced Greene.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it,” he said, referring to the Ukraine aid bill Greene and her cohorts want to tank. “I mean that’s a strange position to take.”

The far-right hardliners are also causing chaos in the House.

“Things just got very heated on the House floor,” NBC News’ Julie Tsirkin reported earlier Thursday. “Group of hardliners were trying to pressure Johnson to only put Israel aid on the floor and hold Ukraine aid until the Senate passed HR2.”

HR2 is the House Republicans’ extremist anti-immigrant legislation that has n o chance of passage in the Senate nor would it be signed into law by President Biden.

“Johnson said he couldn’t do it, and [U.S. Rep. Derrick] Van Orden,” a far-right Republican from Wisconsin “called him ‘tubby’ and vowed to bring on the MTV [Motion to Vacate.]”

“No one in the group (Gaetz, Boebert, Burchett, Higgins, Donalds et al.) were threatening Johnson with an MTV,” Tsirkin added. “Van Orden seemed to escalate things dramatically…”

Despite Greene’s pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine positions, her falsehoods about “Ukrainian Nazis,” and Russians not slaughtering Ukrainian clergy, reporters continue to “swarm”:

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

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‘They Want Russia to Win So Badly’: GOP Congressman Blasts Far-Right House Republicans

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17 hours ago

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April 18, 2024

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A sitting Republican Congressman is harshly criticizing far-right House Republicans over their apparent support of Russia.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it. I mean that’s a strange position to take,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a three-term Texas Republican rated a hard-core conservative told CNN’s Manu Raju, in video posted Thursday. “I think they want to be in the minority too. I think that’s an obvious reality.”

Congressman Crenshaw was referring to the movement led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), now joined by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), over the Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s decision to finally put legislation on the floor to provide funding to Ukraine to support that sovereign nation in its fight against Russia.

“I’m still trying to process all the b*llsh*t,” Crenshaw added.

Crenshaw on Thursday also commented on Speaker Johnson’s remarks, stating he will hold the Ukraine funding vote regardless of attempts to oust him over it.

“To be clear, he’s being threatened for even allowing a vote to come to the floor. For allowing the constitutional process to play out as intended by our Founders. That’s a wild thing to consider, especially when his enemies consider themselves ‘conservative.’ Not conserving the painstaking constitutional process our Founders created, that’s for sure. Conserving Putin’s gains on the battlefield, more like it.”

Journalist Brian Beutler, a former editor-in-chief at Crooked Media, called it, “darkly funny to me that a pincer movement of MAGAns and leftists mock liberals for claiming the GOP works hand in glove with Russia, and then multiple conservative Republican dissenters are like ‘no it’s true, we’re lousy with Russian influence.'”

Watch Crenshaw’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

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OPINION

Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

Published

18 hours ago

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April 18, 2024

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For years U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been called “Pro-Putin.” As far back as 2021, her first year as a member of Congress, the question had been raised on social media: “Is Marjorie Taylor Greene a Russian asset?”

In 2022 The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org reported: “Marjorie Taylor Greene Parrots Russian Talking Point on Ukraine.”

Back then, as the article highlighted, Greene had said, “there is no doubt that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s actions in Ukraine are despicable and evil.”

Now, she promotes a far more favorable view of President Vladimir Putin and his illegal war against Ukraine, a sovereign nation which the Russian autocrat wants to incorporate – at least partly – into Russia.

Just last week Greene spread demonstrably false pro-Russia talking points about a “war on Christianity” while defending and promoting President Vladimir Putin.

READ MORE: ‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

“This is a war on Christianity,” Greene told far-right propagandist Steve Bannon. “The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians, the Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that.”

That’s just plain false, as NCRM reported.

Largely in response to her strong opposition to the U.S. supporting Ukraine, and her spreading Russian disinformation and flat-out pro-Putin falsehoods, Greene’s fondness for Putin and Russia has been making headlines.

“Republicans Who Like Putin,” was the headline last month at The New York Times, which observed: “A few Republicans have gone so far as [to] speak about Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in ways that mimic Russian propaganda. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has accused Ukraine of having ‘a Nazi army,’ echoing language Putin used to justify the invasion.”

“The Putin Republicans Have the Upper Hand” warned Washington Monthly‘s David Atkins on Wednesday, reporting on “conservative extremists led by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

“They admire the strongman as a Christian nationalist leader, and won’t support Ukraine. The global consequences of their besotted love affair with the Russian strongman could be cataclysmic.”

“Russia Is Buying Politicians in Europe. Is It Happening Here Too?” The New Republic‘s Alex Finley wrote last week. The photo at the top of the page? Marjorie Taylor Greene.

READ MORE: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Finley pointed to Greene’s interview with Bannon, “about Ukraine’s persecution of Christians, which is a Kremlin talking point aimed at boosting the pro-Moscow wing of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church. The U.S. should be spending money on the border with Mexico, not on Ukraine aid? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself against an expanding NATO? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Call for a cease-fire, and give Russia Crimea and eastern Ukraine? That’s a Kremlin talking point.”

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post last week ran this headline: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she ‘seriously hates’ people who support sending more aid to Ukraine: ‘Most repulsive, disgusting thing happening’.”

Then there is Greene’s obsession with Nazis. Specifically, equating Ukrainians with Nazis, which she did several times over the past week, including on Wednesday. That earned her the condemnation and wrath of U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who demanded: “Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler.”

Wednesday night, Congressman Moskowitz, known for his use of humor and sarcasm to make his points, declared: “Just submitted an amendment to Bill drafting appointing MTG [Marjorie Taylor Greene] as Putin’s Special Envoy to the United States Congress.”

Moskowitz’s amendment was in response to Congresswoman Greene’s amendments requiring members to “conscript in the Ukrainian military” if they vote for the Ukraine military funding bill, as Juliegrace Brufke reported.

READ MORE: ‘Big Journalism Fail’: Mainstream Media Blasted Over Coverage of Historic Trump Trial

The Florida Democrat wasn’t joking, as Axios’ Andrew Solender pointed out Thursday morning.

Moskowitz did not stop there.

He drafted legislation on Thursday to name the Capitol Hill offices occupied by Congresswoman Greene after the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, infamous for promoting appeasement in dealing with Adolf Hitler.

Chamberlain also signed the Munich Agreement, which allowed Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

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