Is Dan Savage the reason Senator Scott Brown snubbed his fellow Massachusetts Congressmen and Senators’ It Gets Better video? Brown was the only member of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation absent from their It Gets Better video supporting LGBTQ youth.
Looks like the Republican spin machine is trying to get you to think Savage is to blame.
Amanda Terkel at The Huffington Post reports:
“Senator Brown believes all people regardless of sexual orientation should be treated with dignity and respect. He has been a leader in fighting for anti-bullying legislation at the state and federal level. His main focus is creating jobs and getting the economy moving again. In this case, the individual behind the video has made vile and sexually crude comments about Senator Brown. It’s reprehensible for Senator Brown’s opponents to associate with this person in order to score cheap political points,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, a political adviser to Brown.
(Emphasis mine.)
He pointed to Savage’s February 2010 column in which he joked about shoving a “Coke bottle, Oscar statuette, [or]Â Scott Brown action figure” up “someone’s ass and/or twat.”
Terkel continues,
During a press call hosted by the Massachusetts Democratic Party, state Rep. Carl Sciortino (D-Medford) said Brown’s refusal to participate in the video was part of a pattern of failing to support rights for LGBT individuals. He cited the fact that in 2006, when Brown was a state senator, he was the only member to vote to uphold then-Gov. Mitt Romney’s veto of a Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.
“Sen. Brown’s absence in our congressional delegation’s video sends a message that he supports kids being bullied or harassed,” said Sciortino. “Now, I don’t think that’s the message that Sen. Brown wants to send. I’m asking him, as a senator for the commonwealth, to stand up and show some leadership on behalf of his LGBT constituents, our young people that are facing violence in our schools, our young people that are being bullied in our schools.”
And Politico’s Ben Smith shares this email from National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) communications director Brian Walsh:
“If, as the old saying goes, you’re known by the company you keep, than [sic] the voters of Massachusetts deserve to know who Democrat Party operatives are teaming up with to spread outrageous attacks on Scott Brown’s character.
“It’s truly reached a new level of desperation in their efforts to tear down Scott Brown, but we look forward to hearing whether state and national Democrat leaders agree with Dan Savage’s long history of lewd, violent and anti-Christian rhetoric. Given their press conference call today, one has to presume at this point that they do.”
Smith adds,
Walsh sent over a series of clips that includes a reference to “Jesus freaks” and, perhaps more to the point, some evidence that Savage isn’t exactly a political neutral: A column last year titled “F*** the Republican Party,” which he described with typical understatement as “an implacable mortal enemy.”
Then Smith offers an update direct from Dan Savage himself:
“I am not the IGB project. The project has had the reach and impact that it’s had thanks to tens of thousands of people from all over the world who’ve participated. [A]nd no one who participates is required to crawl into bed with me. ..:
“It is interesting, though, that not a single GOP elected official can bring himself or herself to make a video, or participate in the creation of one. No GOP elected official can risk being seen letting bullied LGBT kids know that life isn’t high school and that it will get better for them. it doesn’t require signing off on the entire gay agenda (the president made a video, and he doesn’t support gay marriage). No GOP elected can back the seemingly radical notion that LGBT kids shouldn’t kill themselves, that they should have hope for their futures.
“No GOP elected official can do even that — David Cameron, meanwhile, made a video months ago. Which tells us a lot about the noisiest part of the GOP’s base — lewd (have you seen their websites?) hate groups like Focus on the Family and Americans for Truth About Homosexuality — and how feared they are by even ‘moderate’ senators like Scott Brown.”
I found a bit upsetting the fact that, as Savage said, “not a single GOP elected official can bring himself or herself to make a video, or participate in the creation of one.” So I checked with the It Gets Better Project.
“No Republican elected official has made an It Gets Better video or signed the It Gets Better pledge,” Scott Zumwalt, a spokesperson for the It Gets Better Project, confirmed.
Comments on Smith’s Politico piece and Turkel’s Huffington Post piece run the gamut, but these two struck me as interesting:
“Brown has proved himself a shrewd politician, but this is not a smart move. It Gets Better is literally the least offensive “gay rights” thing you can possibly do; it’s just telling gay teens not to hate themselves, and not to give up. If you can find something wrong with that message, there’s honestly something wrong with you.” (Huffington Post reader Landstander)
“Dan Savage can’t have it both ways. He can’t be lewd (his santurom antics are one such act) and expect us to believe that the organizations he is associated with are respectable. People are not that dumb. There is a price paid for these types of antics. Scott Brown has a right not to attend an event that views the party he belongs to as the ‘mortal enemy’.” (Politico reader MB Rocks)
So, what’s the verdict? What do you think?
(Full disclosure: Dan Savage and I have had “words,” recently.)
Oh, and here’s Dan and Terry’s It gets Better video. Why not see it again?