Anti-Bullying Speaker Curses Christian Teens

[Niflmir]

Not just 'rational people' - contemporary, mainstream Christianity. Unless Savage was under the impression that he was invited to speak to a fundamentalist, paleo-style fundamentalist Christian sect, then he argument is weak and pathetic.

There is no amount of spin and twisting of logic that will change the fact that Savage attacked these high school kids on an unprovoked basis. Relying on millenia-old practices that are now only refernced in history books just doesn't wash.

Um... Does attacking the principal document upon which many/most Christians base their belief system count?

No. It does not count. There is a huge difference between attacking a general group of people and attacking a silly idea in a book.

Do you deny that there are people in the USA that go around beating up gay people and justifying it with religion? Or preventing homosexuals from having equal treatment before the law? That is reality, people are still getting beat up because a few people cling to the notion that the bible justifies violence against homosexuals or at the least describes it as an abomination, and that is an issue that needs to be discussed and discounted.

 

[SLM]

He didn't target any group.

What he did is state that the idea that gays should be killed or that homosexuality is an abomination is bull**** just like separating women from society during menstruation, forbidding the eating of shellfish and a number of other things is bull****. He said that simply because these ideas appear in the bible does not make them correct, something which pretty much everybody would agree.

So yeah, maybe targeting a group of people from a position of authority is cowardly, and maybe cowardly equates to bullying, but that certainly isn't what happened here. Nobody was targeted, despite Fox News's incessant desire to portray it so.

I don't care one bit what Fox News has to say on the matter.

Members of the GLBT community are targeted by more than just Christians and not all Christians target them. In fact most of them don't, so singling out the Bible as the source of modern Christianities intolerance towards homosexuals while not bothering to acknowledge that those intolerances are not embraced by all Christians is a very direct targeting, imo.

I've known far many more people who are not Christian based in their ideology that have incredible homophobic tendencies then I've known Christians that are all about hate.

I see the difference between bullying and pointing out that this:

is bull****. I guess from this discussion that you cannot see the difference.

Equating the above with all of Christianity is not unlike equating all Muslims with Al Qaeda.

 

[Niflmir]

Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, IMHO which does not mean that one can't question them. Ridicule is an entirely different matter, it does not further your argument when you stoop to using derision.

I agree that it doesn't further an argument to call people names, although based on his behavior in this thread, gerryh clearly disagrees with that idea. But to portray this as a bigoted attack on Christians is just absurd. Calling an idea bull**** is hardly an off limits statement.

I don't care one bit what Fox News has to say on the matter.

Members of the GLBT community are targeted by more than just Christians and not all Christians target them. In fact most of them don't, so singling out the Bible as the source of modern Christianities intolerance towards homosexuals while not bothering to acknowledge that those intolerances are not embraced by all Christians is a very direct targeting, imo.

I've known far many more people who are not Christian based in their ideology that have incredible homophobic tendencies then I've known Christians that are all about hate.



Equating the above with all of Christianity is not unlike equating all Muslims with Al Qaeda.

Right, but nobody is equating that with all of Christianity. What is happening is that these nuts are using antiquated ideas in the bible to justify their anti-gay agenda, and other Christians are objecting to Savage calling those ideas bull****.

 

[Niflmir]

It's too bad the Christian kids left the hall. They're supposed to be journalists, and we in the journalism biz must often dirty our ears with others' distasteful utterances. While Savage might have profitably avoided the use of profanities (which, when used to describe allegedly sacred documents, tend to make believers less than receptive to whatever might come next), what he said was materially true, and good journalism students of any creed ought to know it.

Teen Christians Vs. Dan Savage At Student Journalism Conference: VIDEO |Gay News|Gay Blog Towleroad

 

[SLM]

Right, but nobody is equating that with all of Christianity. What is happening is that these nuts are using antiquated ideas in the bible to justify their anti-gay agenda, and other Christians are objecting to Savage calling those ideas bull****.

Then he should have said that it is the nuts that are using the antiquated ideas. The implication that it is all believers in the Bible is there without that qualifier. And Christians are not objecting to him calling those ideas bull****, they are objecting to the absence of that same qualifier.

I see this in what has transpired and I am not a Christian. You would also be pretty hard pressed to find someone who will jump in to defend against anti-homosexual rhetoric faster than I.

He had a fantastic opportunity to make an impression on the minds of those in attendance. He choose instead to alienate a good portion out of anger.

 

[Niflmir]

Then he should have said that it is the nuts that are using the antiquated ideas. The implication that it is all believers in the Bible is there without that qualifier. And Christians are not objecting to him calling those ideas bull****, they are objecting to the absence of that same qualifier.

I see this in what has transpired and I am not a Christian. You would also be pretty hard pressed to find someone who will jump in to defend against anti-homosexual rhetoric faster than I.

He had a fantastic opportunity to make an impression on the minds of those in attendance. He choose instead to alienate a good portion out of anger.

He prefaces the entire discussion with a "People often point out that they can't help it -- they can't help with the anti-gay bullying, because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans, that being gay is wrong."

Since most Christians would be inclined to think that those sections do not justify anti-gay bullying, there is your qualifier right there. That or the fact that he says "People" means he is talking about everybody he has ever met. He never says anything about Christians or people who believe in the bible.

 

[DaSleeper]

He prefaces the entire discussion with a "People often point out that they can't help it -- they can't help with the anti-gay bullying, because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans, that being gay is wrong."

Since most Christians would be inclined to think that those sections do not justify anti-gay bullying, there is your qualifier right there. That or the fact that he says "People" means he is talking about everybody he has ever met. He never says anything about Christians or people who believe in the bible.

That right there proves that he's an anti religion bigot and you use that as a good point for him????:roll:

Remind me never to wish you Merry christmas

 

[Niflmir]

That right there proves that he's an anti religion bigot and you use that as a good point for him????:roll:

Remind me never to wish you Merry christmas

Could you explain to me how pointing out that some people actually use those quotes to justify anti-gay bullying makes someone a bigot? I'd like to know, since I pointed out earlier that the Westboro Baptist Church uses exactly those quotes and now I'm afraid that I am bigot for pointing out that these people exist.

 

[gerryh]

Could you explain to me how pointing out that some people actually use those quotes to justify anti-gay bullying makes someone a bigot? I'd like to know, since I pointed out earlier that the Westboro Baptist Church uses exactly those quotes and now I'm afraid that I am bigot for pointing out that these people exist.

:roll: westboro also has picketed and disrupted soldiers funerals. So I guess that means all Christians espouse the same. Right?

 

[Niflmir]

:roll: westboro also has picketed and disrupted soldiers funerals. So I guess that means all Christians espouse the same. Right?

I've been quite clear that one should not generalize. Here is me earlier in the thread, pointing out how I think generalizing is a bad idea:

I think the bible is a book and Christianity is a religion. Neither is an idea.

Generalizing either would be a silly idea, deserving of ridicule. Heck the closest true statement one can make about all Christians is "They believe that faith in Christ is necessary for salvation," and even that probably isn't true of all sects. That is why racism is stupid. The only true statement that can be made about all black people is, "They have dark skin."

I think the bible contains a lot of silly ideas. Among them the ones about slavery, bats being birds, Paul thinking that women should wear veils. I think most Christians recognize these as silly ideas as well.

 

[DaSleeper]

Could you explain to me how pointing out that some people actually use those quotes to justify anti-gay bullying makes someone a bigot? I'd like to know, since I pointed out earlier that the Westboro Baptist Church uses exactly those quotes and now I'm afraid that I am bigot for pointing out that these people exist.

The fact that you use westboro, as an example of Christians in this forum makes trying to convince you to use logical reasoning in this matter completely impossible...
I never thought before that you were such an ideologue..............................!

 

[captain morgan]

I've been quite clear that one should not generalize.

Too funny.... But reaching back a few thousand years for the purpose of generalizing on this issue doesn't count, eh?

The fact that you use westborough, as an example of Christians in this forum makes trying to convince you to use logical resoning in this matter completely impossible...
I never thought before that you were such an ideologue..............................!

Apparently, the logic works something like this: Hitler was German; therefore all Germans will always be Nazis

 

[Goober]

No. It does not count. There is a huge difference between attacking a general group of people and attacking a silly idea in a book.

Do you deny that there are people in the USA that go around beating up gay people and justifying it with religion? Or preventing homosexuals from having equal treatment before the law? That is reality, people are still getting beat up because a few people cling to the notion that the bible justifies violence against homosexuals or at the least describes it as an abomination, and that is an issue that needs to be discussed and discounted.

Do you think he could have used a far different manner and text and still make his point crystal clear?

 

[petros]

What an asshole.


As many as 100 high school students walked out of a national journalism conference after an anti-bullying speaker began cursing, attacked the Bible and reportedly called those who refused to listen to his rant “pansy asses.”

Jackin' it in San Diego!

 

[Niflmir]

The fact that you use westboro, as an example of Christians in this forum makes trying to convince you to use logical reasoning in this matter completely impossible...
I never thought before that you were such an ideologue..............................!

I used the Westboro people as an example of individuals who use those quotes from the bible. Since I see that you are intent on misinterpreting everything I say, consider yourself to have won.

Do you think he could have used a far different manner and text and still make his point crystal clear?

I think he definitely could have.

 

[WLDB]

I think he does a pretty good job of explaining himself here.

Dan Savage: What would you say to good, LGBT affirming Christian churches? - YouTube

 

[Praxius]

What an asshole.

As many as 100 high school students walked out of a national journalism conference after an anti-bullying speaker began cursing, attacked the Bible and reportedly called those who refused to listen to his rant “pansy asses.”

The speaker was Dan Savage, founder of the “It Gets Better” project, an anti-bullying campaign that has reached more than 40 million viewers with contributors ranging from President Obama to Hollywood stars. Savage also writes a sex advice column called “Savage Love.”

Ahhhh.... that's why that name is familiar.... Savage Love is published in The Coast magazine (actually a newpaper really) in Halifax. He's blunt & funny.... I like em.

Savage, and his husband, were also guests at the White House for President Obama’s 2011 LGBT Pride Month reception. He was also invited to a White House anti-bullying conference.

Savage was supposed to be delivering a speech about anti-bullying at the National High School Journalism Conference sponsored by the Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association. But it turned into an episode of Christian-bashing.

Well they haven't had enough bashing lately.... it's good someone's keeping up the quota.

Rick Tuttle, the journalism advisor for Sutter Union High School in California, was among several thousand people in the audience. He said they thought the speech was one thing – but it turned into something else.

“I thought this would be about anti-bullying,” Tuttle told Fox news. “It turned into a pointed attack on Christian beliefs.”

Tuttle said a number of his students were offended by Savage’s remarks – and some decided to leave the auditorium.

“It became hostile,” he said. “It felt hostile as we were sitting in the audience – especially towards Christians who espouse beliefs that he was literally taking on.”
Tuttle said the speech was laced with vulgarities and “sexual innuendo not appropriate for this age group.” At one point, he said Savage told the teenagers about how good his partner looked in a speedo.

The conservative website CitizenLink was the first to report about the controversy. They interviewed a 17-year-old girl who was one of students who walked out of the auditorium.

“The first thing he told the audience was, ‘I hope you’re all using birth control,’” she told CitizenLink. “he said there are people using the Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and Romans that being gay is wrong. Right after that, he said we can ignore all the (expletive deleted) in the Bible.”

Well he's right.... just because he didn't sugar coat it, doesn't make him wrong. Much of the bullying that goes around is due to intolerance that originates from most of todays religions.... and since in the US, Christianity is the bigger religion being followed, why not focus on them?

As the teenagers were walking out, Tuttle said that Savage heckled them and called them “pansy asses.”

Well yeah, he probably went too far there, but he's not known for sugar coating his views.... that's why he has the following he currently has & why people read his articles.

I don't blame him for doing what he did, I blame the idiots who booked him in for the conference without looking into his track record.

Besides, it wasn't an Anti-Bullying Conference.... it was a "National Journalism Conference".... just because he founded the "It Gets Better" organization, that isn't all he has done, nor should people simply expect him to confine himself to just Anti-Bullying when that's not all that he does.

Cripes people are Naive.

“You can tell the Bible guys in the hall they can come back now because I’m done beating up the Bible,” Savage said as other students hollered and cheered. “It’s funny as someone who is on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible how pansy-assed people react when you push back.”

Indeed.... funny that.

However, not once did the NSPA or the JEA offer any apologies to the students or faculty advisors or anyone else in attendance.

lol, funny that too....

Sounds like you're justifying the bullying that was going on because the 'perception' this man had regarding Christianity and apparently, all of the attendees to the speech.

Damn right.... you think it's a bad thing to attack an attacker?

They started it... they began the bullying, you're just finishing it and made a damn good example of the d*ck.

And let me get this straight so help me... you believe the Bible and Christianity is a silly idea?

I'll give you a simple answer then.... without dancing around the issue....

.... Yes.... not just a silly idea, but a completely ignorant, short-sighted religious belief that spreads more ignorance, hatred and violence than it prevents.

The very moment I made my decision to leave Christianity was the moment I was sitting in Church, thinking the church I was in actually showed more tolerance than most, and then after 20 years of going to that church, our priest started to go off on homosexuals, same sex marriage, sex before marriage, abortions and everything else under the sun...... Guess they weren't making their quota of hatred in that church for the last 20 years so they had to catch up.

I can not defend nor can I justify such a religion that directs hatred, violence and ignorance towards the people in my life I give a damn about, such as cousins and friends I grew up with who are gay or didn't abide by their code of living.... who've all showed more tolerance, more kindness and more compassion to their fellow human being than any of the jackwads I sat beside in that church.

And for some ignorant religion such as Christianity to tell me and others that these people were evil and deserved to go to hell, based on some age old dogma that has no basis on reality or logic..... that religion and those who believe that religion so damn much to act the way they do against those different from them deserve nothing but contempt & mockery.

Christianity at its core is a Bully Religion, as proven by how many cultures and billions of people over the centuries and around the world were oppressed by the religion, forced to follow that religion, or be stoned, burned, beaten, hung, tortured and/or killed if they didn't.

And when a bully pushes too far, the only way to stop them is to push their asses right back.

And if that means a few kids walk out of a speech they can't refute and get offended, then that's just too g'damn bad.

 

[gerryh]

Well he's right.... just because he didn't sugar coat it, doesn't make him wrong. Much of the bullying that goes around is due to intolerance that originates from most of todays religions.... and since in the US, Christianity is the bigger religion being followed, why not focus on them?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...... maybe tell the fu cking atheists that beat on me and bullied me all through high school because they considered me a "fag"

Damn right.... you think it's a bad thing to attack an attacker?

They started it... they began the bullying, you're just finishing it and made a damn good example of the d*ck.

Ahhhhh.... so those kids that he called pansy asses had attacked and bullied him first. I didn't realize that. Would you mind supplying a link to that little gem? I can't seem to find it any where.

And if that means a few kids walk out of a speech they can't refute and get offended, then that's just too g'damn bad.

RIGHT!!!! Cause it's easier to attack when it's just kids.... fu ckin useless piece of shyte.

 

[DaSleeper]

..........

So that's what happens to you when you spend too much time upside down...

 

[Goober]

Dan Savage has become the bully | Full Comment | National Post

A scene from the anti-bullying movement: In Seattle last month, a prominent speaker tells 2,800 high school journalists that the Bible is full of various brands of “bull****,” prompting some in the audience to leave. Leaking venom, the anti-bullying advocate heckles them as they depart, calling their reaction “pansy-assed.” He later apologizes for this remark in a blog post: “It was insulting, it was name-calling and it was wrong,” he writes. He might also have mentioned, but did not, that calling someone a “pansy-ass” as he flees an uncomfortable situation is a textbook case of bullying.

Mr. Savage’s greatest bullying triumph is still his neologism for “Santorum” — “the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex” — which remains the top Google hit if you search for Rick’s surname. (It’s an adult version of nicknaming the smelly kid in class “Poo.”) During Mr. Santorum’s re-election campaign for Pennsylvania Senator, Mr. Savage suggested the Green Party candidate be murdered by dragging him behind a truck. He apologized for this incident as well, blaming alcohol, which was itself a textbook bully’s apology.Mr. Savage was making a perfectly legitimate and age-appropriate point to those high school students: That Christians who resist anti-bullying efforts because the Bible forbids homosexuality could choose to ignore those parts of the Bible, just as they ignore the parts about slavery. Only he wrapped that point not just in foul language but in store-brand Bible-bashing: “The Bible is a rabidly pro-slavery document,” he crowed. “Slave-owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War.”

One of the great things about the It Gets Better campaign is, one hopes, that it discredited that horrible old piece of parental advice: “You’d better learn to deal with bullies now, because you’ll have to deal with them all your life.” A backhanded slap to the face might be more heartening. And yet Mr. Savage’s own behaviour almost seems to validate the notion. He’s free to speak his mind, of course, and is likely doing more good than harm. But one has to wonder how much longer the obsessively touchy-feely mainstream of the anti-bulling movement can consider Mr. Savage a champion.