No, Fuck You, Mr. Savage

21Oct10

Dan Savage is always an interesting read, and I can admire the strength of his convictions.

However, this time he is way off base, and as a gay man, I’m ashamed to have him on my side.

In one of his recent columns, he excoriates a reader who gently takes offense to the idea that Christians are somehow magically responsible for the suicides of gay teens that have peppered the news as of late. His statement :

Gay kids are dying. So let’s try to keep things in perspective: fuck your feelings.

My immediate criticism is his choice of the word "dying." Dying implies a helplessness, and an inevitability. It also isn’t true. These kids aren’t "dying" – they are killing themselves.

He then goes on :

The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality — even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person) — learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy.

Here’s where I really find his argument flawed. I was raised in just such an environment. My parents always made their stance on homosexuality clear – they believed it was wrong. Never once did I develop a hatred or feelings of superiority towards gay people. My parents’ views did not make me fearful either. They didn’t attack me for being gay. They never made me feel unloved. We simply disagree about some things. And I sure didn’t grow into a vicious bully that attacked gays in school. I don’t regret, reject, or fear my Christian up-bringing.

But Dan isn’t satisfied with his attack. Not yet :

The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of "faithful Christians" and the lies about us vomited out from the pulpits of churches that "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays give your children license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your children—having listened to mom and dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry—feel justified in physically abusing the LGBT children they encounter in their schools.

Really Dan? What church have you gone to?! I attended a conservative Protestant church every Sunday for the first twenty-some years of my life and never once heard these "vomited lies." Really? You think our churches are out creating little Jesus-soldiers of terror out to crush their homosexual peers with violent words?!

What church is this?

Is there a correlation between religion and gay teens being bullied? If that were true, it seems we should see a rash of suicides at Christian schools and colleges. Why don’t we?

This article suggests that gay bashing, rather than a product of a conservative Christian up-bringing, is more about a perceived attack on masculinity. Perhaps that is closer to the truth.

Dan Savage, I understand you are angry, but pointing fingers and targeting Christians without a shred of evidence is just bigoted. I think you can do better. Until then, Dan Savage, take your hateful words and go fuck yourself.

Filed under: gay, insanity, rant   |  1 Comment