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Is Dan Savage The Gay Ann Coulter?

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I like Dan Savage. Well, I used to. Until this week. Dan is on a roll. If anything, I think maybe Dan’s upset that he’s not the one who got kicked out of an Ottawa college speaking invitation. But Dan Savage is using anti-gay slurs to insult the same people who are targeting the LGBTQ community. And that is unacceptable.

So, let’s play a game. Name the author of the following statements:

  1. Al Gore is a “total fag.”
  2. “…but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I’m – so, kind of at an impasse, can’t really talk about [John] Edwards…”
  3. “Ken Cuccinelli Is a Fag.”
  4. “Transgendered Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna Betrays His Community.”

Are you sure?

OK. Well, probably it was pretty easy for you. #1 and #2 are from conservative author Ann Coulter, and they’re from my piece last year, “The Rise And Fall And Rise Of Ann Coulter And The Business Of Anti-Gay Hate Speech In America (Part One).”

Sadly, #3 and #4 are from liberal, gay author and activist Dan Savage.

#3 is the title of Dan’s column today in The Slog.

#4 is the title of Dan’s column yesterday in The Slog.

See where I’m going here?

Savage is doing this on purpose. Yesterday, in response to the immediate uproar his column received, Dan wrote this:

UPDATE: I’m getting some very angry emails about this post. What can I say? I’m so sorry. I wrote the post in a hurry but that’s really no excuse. But I promise that in all future posts about Rob McKenna I will not fail to include a link to the Facebook page “Washington Tax Payers OPT OUT of Rob McKenna’s Lawsuit.”

So, what’s the big deal here? Well, Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna is NOT “transgendered.”*

Savage, evidently, thinks insulting someone by calling them a “fag,” or “transgendered,”* is funny.

It’s not.

Trans people and the entire LGBTQ community have enough challenges without having those in a leadership position offering our identifications as insults. “Fag” and “Transgendered”* (as Savage wrote) are not intrinsically insulting — except when they are used as insults.

Yesterday, a great number of the comments in Dan’s post pointed out how Dan had crossed a line and pointed out how offensive it was. In “How to squander your credibility as a civil rights advocate,” Lurleen of Pam’s House Blend weighed in:

Dan Savage is a gifted Seattle-based gay writer who has done so much wonderful advocacy for our community.  Steven Colbert refers to him as “the spokesgay”, a role he seems pleased to fulfill on national television and in The Stranger, the newspaper he writes for.  People speaking from such powerful platforms have a special responsibility to not embarrass and misrepresent the people they purport to speak for, and today Dan has greatly embarrassed and misrepresented this lesbian with this diary at The Stranger’s blog, the SLOG.

With action on ENDA hopefully right around the corner, I can only wonder how Dan could possibly think it was reasonable to use a negative and baseless accusation of transgenderism and transexual history against an elected official who he has a political disagreement with.  This absolutely sickens me.  Major fail, Dan.  Shame on you.  You make LGB people look like the very homobigots you rail against daily.

I agree.

And here’s another real danger. Abdication of leadership and responsibility.

Dan Savage is a recognized LGBTQ leader. People listen to him and assume what he says is be “OK.” So, while yesterday Dan took some heat in his column’s comments, today, with the following disclaimer, a great many of his readers just laughed it off.

For the record: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being gay. I mean, obviously. So while this particular state attorney general—this bigoted douchebag—might not like being called a fag, I trust that my fellow fags aren’t going to think I’ve insulted them by calling this guy a fag.

That’s the danger of taking your role in a community for granted. As members of the LGBTQ community with a platform, we all have a responsibility to uphold higher standards and to be role models for the people we serve. Dan abdicated his leadership and responsibility when he chose to use those words. He discredited his great work when he did it twice.

Using “fag,” or “transgendered,” is the same offensive concept that says it’s OK for blacks to call someone the “N” word, because they’re black.

Well, it’s not OK.

It’s not OK to use labels to insult people, labels that relate to the the very “who” of who someone is.

I expect it, unfortunately, from the Ann Coulters of this world, and I’m prepared to fight back. But I’ll also fight the Dan Savages if I have to, although I’d rather be fighting with them than against them.

*For the record, Savage uses the word “transgendered.” It’s actually inappropriate, and he should have used the word “transgender.” My use of it is in quotes, as I am quoting him.

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COMMENTARY

‘I’m Broke’: One Day Before Shutdown and With No Plan McCarthy Says He Has ‘Nothing’ in His ‘Back Pocket’

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7 hours ago

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September 29, 2023

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Just 30 hours before his own Republican conference likely will have succeeded in shutting down the federal government of the United States, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy candidly admitted to reporters he’s run out of ideas.

Earlier Friday in an “embarrassing failure,” 21 House Republicans killed legislation from their own party, a short-term continuing resolution, that would have kept the federal government open.

Later on Friday afternoon, swarmed by reporters, McCarthy was asked if he was going to tell them what his plans are. He sarcastically replied, “No, I’m going to keep it all a secret.”

When pressed, he said he would “keep working, and make sure we solve this problem.”

“What’s in your back pocket, Speaker?” another reporter asked, pressing him for an answer.

“Nothing right now. I’m broke,” he admitted, apparently referring to options and ideas to avoid a shutdown.

READ MORE: ‘Bad News’ for Sidney Powell as First Trump Co-Defendant in Georgia RICO Case Takes Plea Deal: Legal Expert

But another reporter asked Speaker McCarthy the main question: Would he partner with House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to put the Senate’s bill before the House.

He refused to answer.

Just before 5 PM CNN’s Manu Raju reported on the ongoing House Republicans’ closed-door meeting with the Speaker, a meeting where the 21 Republicans who will likely be effectively responsible for the shutdown reportedly did not attend.

“McCarthy is telling [Republicans] now there aren’t many options to avoid a shutdown, according to sources in room. He says they can approve GOP’s stop-gap plan that failed, accept Senate plan, put a ‘clean’ stop-gap on floor to dare Democrats to block it — or shut down the government.”

READ MORE: Will McConnell and Senate Republicans Use Feinstein’s Passing to Grind Biden’s Judicial Confirmations to a Halt?

He adds, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) largely responsible for the impending likely shutdown and the impending possible ouster of McCarthy said: “We will not pass a continuing resolution on terms that continue America’s decline.”

At midnight Saturday Republicans will likely have succeeded in furloughing 3.5 million million federal workers – two million of them service members in the U.S. Armed Forces – and countless contractors, while financially harming untold thousands of businesses that rely on income from all those workers to keep running – unless Speaker McCarthy puts a bipartisan continuing resolution approved by at least 75 U.S. Senators on the floor, legislation every House Democrat is likely to vote for.

Should he do so, many believe he will have also signed his own pink slip.

But whether or not the government shuts down, and whether or not McCarthy puts the Senate’s CR on the floor, according to The Washington Post the far right extremists in his party are already moving to oust him “as early as next week.”

The Biden campaign is making certain Americans realize the blame for the impending shutdown sits at McCarthy’s feet.

At 6:23 PM Friday evening, Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman wrote on social media: “HOUSE REPUBLICANS HAVE NO PLAN TO KEEP GOVERNMENT OPEN.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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News

‘Bad News’ for Sidney Powell as First Trump Co-Defendant in Georgia RICO Case Takes Plea Deal: Legal Expert

Published

10 hours ago

on

September 29, 2023

By

The first of 19 co-defendants in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO and election interference case against Donald Trump has pleaded guilty in what is being described as a “plea deal.”

“Under the terms of an agreement with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s office, Hall pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state,” NBC News reports. “Under the terms of the deal, he’s being sentenced to five years probation.”

CNN previously reported “Hall, a bail bondsman and pro-Trump poll-watcher in Atlanta, spent hours inside a restricted area of the Coffee County elections office when voting systems were breached in January 2021. The breach was connected to efforts by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists to find voter fraud. Hall was captured on surveillance video at the office, on the day of the breach. He testified before the grand jury in Fulton County case and acknowledged that he gained access to a voting machine.”

READ MORE: Will McConnell and Senate Republicans Use Feinstein’s Passing to Grind Biden’s Judicial Confirmations to a Halt?

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a professor of law and frequent MSNBC contributor, says Hall “was in the thick of things with Sidney Powell on Jan 7 for the Coffee County scheme involving voting machines. If he’s cooperating, it’s a bad sign for her.”

Hall’s plea deal “spells bad news for, among others, Sidney Powell,” says former Dept. of Defense Special Counsel Ryan Goodman, an NYU Law professor of law. Goodman posted a graphic showing the overlap in charges against Hall and Powell, which he called “alleged joint actions.”

See the graphic above or at this link.

 

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News

Far-Right Republicans Kill GOP Bill to Keep Government Running in ‘Embarrassing Failure’ for McCarthy: Report

Published

12 hours ago

on

September 29, 2023

By

With a shutdown less than 36 hours away, far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives Friday afternoon voted against their party’s own legislation to kept the federal government running. Democrats opposed the content of the bill and voted against it. Just 21 far-right members of the GOP conference were able to effectively force what appears to be an all but inevitable shutdown at midnight on Saturday.

“HARDLINE HOUSE RS take down stopgap funding bill. 21 GOP no votes. 232-198,” reported Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman just before 2 PM Friday.

NBC News reported that a “band of conservative rebels on Friday revolted and blocked House Republicans’ short-term funding bill to keep the government open, delivering a political blow to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and likely cementing the chances of a painful government shutdown that is less than 48 hours away.”

READ MORE: Will McConnell and Senate Republicans Use Feinstein’s Passing to Grind Biden’s Judicial Confirmations to a Halt?

“Twenty-one rebels, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a conservative bomb-thrower and a top Donald Trump ally, voted Friday afternoon to scuttle the 30-day funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, leaving Republicans without a game plan to avert a shutdown. The vote failed,” NBC added. “The embarrassing failure of the GOP measure once again highlights the dilemma for McCarthy as his hard-liners strongly oppose a short-term bill even if it includes conservative priorities. It leaves Congress on a path to a shutdown, with no apparent offramp to avoiding it — or to quickly reopen the government.”

A bipartisan group of at least 75 U.S. Senators has passed two bills this week that would keep the government running. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has refused to allow it to come to the floor for a vote.

 

 

 

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