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Monogamy: Dan Savage Calls Me Out

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Dan Savage thinks his public comments on marriage, monogamy, and fidelity don’t hurt our efforts to win hearts and minds in our battle for equality — and admonishes me for pointing out that they do.

Dear Dan,

In, “Confidential to David Badash,” a rant on your blog even most of your readers who commented seemed to think little of, you call me out for my article, “Chuck Colson: ‘Gay marriage will inevitably undermine all marriages’,” in which I call your comments in a New York Times interview last month, (in passing, I might add, as the piece is about Chuck Colson, remember, Dan?,) “misplaced rambling,” and your statement on monogamy, “circumspect.”

You didn’t piss me off, but thanks for saying “I’m sorry,” as you write, for, “sharing my opinions and shit like that.”

Time and time again, Dan, as I have mentioned before, you do shoot your mouth off without thinking about the bigger picture or the consequences of your actions. For an advice columnist, surely that’s not wise, is it?

I have no desire to judge the covenants of your relationship or of anyone else’s. Lord knows, the only people who can create and guide and judge their relationship are those whose relationship it is.

And for the record, while I personally believe in monogamy and fidelity — the “forsaking all others” thing — I don’t think I have the right to force that on anyone else.

But I take umbrage with the timing of your comments — even one of your readers made the same observation, and with feeding into the religious right’s pernicious meme that gays are sex fiends. AFA’s Bryan Fischer recently stated, “fidelity in same-​sex relationships is virtually unheard of,” and so, as you can imagine, your comments feed right into that bunk.

Fischer’s was a false statement — as is almost everything that comes out of his mouth about us — but it makes our jobs all the more difficult, especially as he is heard in forty states via the AFA’s 180+ radio stations.

“The view that we need a little less fidelity in marriages is dangerous for a gay-marriage advocate to hold,” the Times piece that started this brouhaha warned. “It feeds into the stereotype of gay men as compulsively promiscuous, and it gives ammunition to all the forces, religious and otherwise, who say that gay families will never be real families and that we had better stop them before they ruin what is left of marriage.”

And that’s my point.

The millions of Americans who are on the fence about us only need to hear that someone billed as one of the most central figures in the LGBT fight for equality thinks that fidelity and monogamy are going to be tossed out by same-sex couples, and there goes another state, say, Minnesota, adding a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages.

Voters, sadly, don’t need to be handed a reason to vote against us — or for the Michele Bachmanns, Rick Santorums, or Rick Perrys of the world. Giving them a reason merely justifies their own ignorance.


 

If you read my entire Chuck Colson piece, which offended you so much you needed to send me a public admonishment, you’d have read the part in which Colson writes, “So the next time you hear friends question what harm gay marriage will do, why not talk about the Times article…”

That’s what we don’t need, Dan. You know so well, from the success of your It Gets Better Project, that words matter, and that we’re fighting a war for hearts and minds. Giving fodder to the enemy only hurts our community — and all those kids you are working so hard to help. Did you ever stop to consider that a great many people read The New York Times, and having your words as ammunition could be used by those who oppose us?

And no, as you write, we’re not going to change Maggie Gallagher’s mind. But the millions of other Americans who are on the fence about us only need to hear that someone billed as one of the most central figures in the LGBT fight for equality thinks that fidelity and monogamy are going to be tossed out by same-sex couples, and there goes another state, say, Minnesota, adding a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages.

Voters, sadly, don’t need to be handed a reason to vote against us — or for the Michele Bachmanns, Rick Santorums, or Rick Perrys of the world. Giving them a reason merely justifies their own ignorance.

You see your job as calling things as you see them, and delivering advice based on your perceptions. I see my job as helping to inform and educate people, and present our issues to the general public honestly and positively — but that doesn’t exclude the importance of calling out those whose missteps harm us.

“We’re fighting for equal rights, sistergirlfriend, not a very special right to a bullshit double standard,” you write. “Gay people don’t have to be on our best behaviors, as defined by you or Maggie or the Pope, to be entitled to our civil rights. They’re called rights, David, and not treats or trophies, for a reason: we don’t have to earn or win them. They’re already ours, technically, even if they’re not yet recognized.”

I agree, seeing that I spend every day, almost every waking moment, writing about our civil rights — and about those who are hard at work trying to prevent legal recognition of them. I certainly don’t need to be reminded that the rights of LGBT people are inalienable, as I’ve written often, like here.

I don’t think we have to earn our rights — they’re ours, they’re inalienable, they exist because we do —  but I do think, for the good of our community, people in the spotlight, people with a platform, have a responsibility to make sure we’re helping, not harming, the movement. That’s why I wrote this. And this.

All that said, Dan, I really do want you to know that I have great respect for so much of what you’ve accomplished. The It Gets Better Project should go down in history as possibly one of the greatest life-saving creations of the decade. You, and Terry, deserve all the accolades you’ve received for that.

As with so many battles within our movement, I fear you may not feel you and I are fighting for exactly the same thing. I hope you realize we’re on the same side.

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News

Congresswoman Appeals Ruling That Would See Her Tried for Felony Assault at ICE Facility

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December 29, 2025

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Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) has filed an appeal Monday against a ruling that she should stand trial for hitting a federal agent with her arm outside an ICE facility.

Earlier this May, McIver went with other congresspeople to the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey. She is accused of hitting an ICE officer with her arm while protecting Newark Mayor Ras Baraka from arrest. The Department of Justice filed three felony charges against her for assaulting, interfering with and resisting a federal officer, according to The Hill.

McIver asked the court to dismiss the charges, saying she had legal immunity as she was a member of Congress making a legal oversight visit to the ICE facility. She also alleged she was being targeted by the Trump administration, according to Politico. District Judge Jamel Semper, a Biden appointee, ruled in November that the charges would stand.

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“Defendant’s active participation in the alleged conduct removes her acts from the safe harbor of mere oversight,” Semper wrote. “Lawfully or unlawfully, Defendant actively engaged in conduct unrelated to her oversight responsibilities and congressional duties.”

McIver filed her appeal on Monday to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, repeating that she is being unfairly targeted by the Trump administration.

“This appeal is for everyone who is standing up to this administration as they try to operate without oversight, silence the people who oppose them, and shut down those who protect the vulnerable,” McIver said in a statement. “They want to make an example out of me, but I will not let them. I will not be bullied out of doing my job and protecting our communities. Not now, not ever.”

Last week, McIver returned to Delaney Hall as part of another oversight visit. Her visit was nearly two weeks after the death of Haitian immigrant and detainee Jean Wilson Brutus, who died the same day he was entered into the facility, according to NJ.com.

“It is very traumatic to be back here, personally,” McIver said. “But I had to put aside my traumatic experience here, and come back here and represent for them what is happening inside of this awful detention center.”

Image via Shutterstock

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News

Trump Refuses to Say If Military or CIA Struck Venezuelan Facility

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14 hours ago

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December 29, 2025

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President Donald Trump refused to say whether the military or CIA had struck a Venezuelan drug-smuggling facility when it’s unclear the strike actually happened

Trump made the claim during a press conference following his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday afternoon. A reporter had asked for further details on Trump’s Friday claim that he had “knocked out” last week a Venezuelan facility where drug-smuggling ships “come from.” Venezuela has yet to comment on the alleged attack or even confirm that it happened, according to The Hill.

“Was the facility taken out by the U.S. military, or was it another entity like the CIA?” the reporter asked in a clip surfaced by reporter Aaron Rupar.

READ MORE: GOP Lawmaker Suggests US ‘About to Go In’ to Venezuela for Oil

“Well, I don’t want to say that. I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But you know it was along the shore,” Trump said.

He was then asked if he’d talked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Trump said he had “pretty recently” but that “nothing much comes from it,” before changing the topic to immigration.

“They’ve sent billions of dollars of drugs in, but maybe just as bad, they’ve sent hundreds of thousands of people in from jails, from prisons, from mental institutions and insane asylums. The drug lords, the drug dealers, were all sent into our country,” Trump said. “Tren de Aragua, probably the worst gang. They cut off people’s fingers. One man made a phone call to complain about them. He cut off their hand. They cut off his hand. ‘Don’t ever make a phone call again. We’ll cut off your hand, and after that, we’ll kill you,’ they said. That was in Colorado.”

Trump appears to be referring to a story from 2024, where Brawnis Dominique Suarez Villegas, accused by the Department of Justice as a member of the Tren de Aragua gang, allegedly “directed and approved the torture and disfigurement” of a Denver man, according to KUNC-FM.

KUNC-FM reports that Suarez Villegas allegedly told fellow gang members to ransom a Denver man to his family for $30,000. The money did not come through and Suarez Villegas is said to have ordered the removal of the man’s finger, not his entire hand.

Suarez Villegas was indicted by a grand jury on Thursday for the robbery of a jewelry store in June 2024, according to CBS News. He is currently in a Bogota, Colombia prison and will be extradited to the United States.

Image via Reuters

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LGBT

.Meow Wants to Use Internet Domain Registration to Help the Queer Community

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15 hours ago

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December 29, 2025

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Everyone’s heard of a .com site, but could .meow be in soon in the cards? A group of LGBTQ technology creators are hoping to make .meow a reality, but they need your help.

.Meow would become a new top-level domain, or TLD. For those who aren’t super techy, that’s the name for the ending part of the domain. For example, in NCRM’s URL, thenewcivilrightsmovement.com, “.com” is the top-level domain.

For a long time in the internet’s history, there have only been a few accepted ones: .com for companies, .org for organizations, .gov for government, .net for networks, .edu for schools and .mil for military organizations. (Real nerds will also point out .arpa, the very first top-level domain; it was intended for the original sites on the ARPANET, the precursor to the internet. Now it’s used just for infrastructure purposes.)

READ MORE: Trump: I’d Make TikTok ‘100% MAGA’ if I Could — but Says It Will Be Fair

In addition to those, top-level domains also included country codes, two-character codes that shared where a site was located. For example, English people are much more likely to go to Amazon.co.uk rather than Amazon.com. Oddly enough, country codes could be an economic boon to smaller countries. For example, Tuvalu frequently sold domains to television fans so they could have URLs ending in “.tv”.

But the world of domains has slowly been opening up with themed TLDs. In 2000, a few more were added like .biz for businesses who missed out on the .com version of their name and .museum for, well, museums. In 2012, that opened even wider to TLDs like .bike, and now there are about 1,200 TLDs available.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the group that maintains all of these TLDs. ICANN is opening another round of applications for new TLDs next April, and the dotMeow Foundation wants to add .meow to the list as an explicitly queer TLD.

The dotMeow Foundation points out on its site that there are .lgbt and .gay already, but it plans to use all profits from .meow registrations to go to the queer community, with a specific focus on transgender issues.

“This all started as a joke — a ‘how hard could it be?’ over drinks. Now we’re deep in the ICANN process, with support secured to lower our costs,” the site says.

To fund its plans, dotMeow has turned to a new Kickstarter campaign. It’s seeking €80,000 (or $94,114), to help pay for the application and other costs. Though it usually costs $227,000 to apply for a new TLD, dotMeow has been accepted into ICANN’s support program which cuts the application cost to no more than $56,750, depending on how many other organizations are promised help. The €80,000 would cover the application, operational costs, Kickstarter’s fee and additional legal work, the foundation says.

As to why they’re looking for .meow in particular, the organization says that it has “broad appeal.” .Meow domains would be available to anyone who wants one.

“While ‘meow’ is a deliberate nod to the catgirls (and boys, and others) among us, it’s about more than that,” the Kickstarter campaign reads. “As the internet has become increasingly centralised, queer communities have increasingly been pushed to the margins, often out of a desire to be palatable to advertisers. Time and again we’ve been building community spaces online on borrowed infrastructure, at the mercy of platform owners and hosting costs.”

Though dotMeow says that it cannot guarantee that ICANN will accept its proposal, the foundation is offering concrete perks like digital wallpapers, stickers and t-shirts, that will be created and sent to backers regardless. That said, the main perk for contributing is vouchers for donors’ own .meow URLs and websites.

Image via Shutterstock

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