Monogamy: Dan Savage Calls Me Out
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.
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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 — Â 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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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
