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Love the Sinner Roland00 Send a noteboard - 13/10/2010 04:07:28 PM
Note this is from the Savage Love column by Dan Savage (people write in and ask advice or reply to previous write ins.) The first part is the person writing in the second one is the response by Dan Savage.
L.R. (The person writing in)

I heard an interview with you about your It Gets Better campaign. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bullying. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man who took his own life.

If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man.

To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people.

Please consider your viewpoint, and please be more careful with your words in the future.

L.R.

Dan Savage

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.

No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: Fuck your feelings.

A question: Do you "support" atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All are legal, all go against Christian and/or traditional ideas about marriage, and yet there's no "Christian" movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or people divorcing and remarrying. Why the hell not?

Sorry, L.R., but so long as you support the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, it's clear that you do believe that some people—straight people—are "better or more worthy" than others.

And—sorry—but you are partly responsible for the bullying and physical violence being visited on vulnerable LGBT children. 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. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.

Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Gay and lesbian children.

Try to keep up: The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of "faithful Christians," and the lies about us that vomit 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. You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" queer kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we're seeing the fruits of it: dead children.

Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?

Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what was said and done to Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas and Cody Barker and Seth Walsh—day in, day out for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the image of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call Mom and Dad.

Your thoughts?
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Love the Sinner - 13/10/2010 04:07:28 PM 1130 Views
I have to think about that for a while. - 13/10/2010 04:30:56 PM 663 Views
Suicide is significantly higher in young gay populations - 13/10/2010 05:36:01 PM 602 Views
That is not what I think requires thought - 13/10/2010 05:56:06 PM 602 Views
Nossy I ain't a mind reader, no matter how I try or how much I would do Jean Grey - 13/10/2010 06:06:42 PM 735 Views
for ze record - 14/10/2010 02:54:07 AM 624 Views
ok now show that it caused by what Christian beliefs *NM* - 13/10/2010 06:50:32 PM 321 Views
I don't think it's the belief's themselves - 14/10/2010 12:20:01 AM 649 Views
The churches who encourage people to bully gays should be condemned - 14/10/2010 06:43:06 PM 637 Views
Re: I have to think about that for a while. - 13/10/2010 06:29:09 PM 634 Views
He was very frank but completely founded - 13/10/2010 04:34:46 PM 693 Views
Ah, that Ghandi quote sure does get around. (which is funny, since he wasn't a Christian) - 13/10/2010 05:07:42 PM 717 Views
I'm not sure that is true - 13/10/2010 05:16:30 PM 614 Views
I think you are missing his point - 13/10/2010 05:45:45 PM 683 Views
Question (and this one actually is asking for information )... - 13/10/2010 06:42:17 PM 521 Views
Yes and no - 13/10/2010 06:53:26 PM 773 Views
Okay, fair enough. *NM* - 13/10/2010 07:48:21 PM 276 Views
I would think... - 14/10/2010 04:35:31 AM 677 Views
I have seen gays be bullied before - 13/10/2010 07:02:35 PM 716 Views
You just didn't listen to a thing I said *NM* - 13/10/2010 07:09:29 PM 279 Views
I think there's truth in this as well. - 13/10/2010 07:55:00 PM 661 Views
churches tend to refelect society as much if not more then they influence it - 14/10/2010 07:15:35 PM 629 Views
Re: I think you are missing his point - 13/10/2010 08:30:42 PM 691 Views
Re: I think you are missing his point - 13/10/2010 09:55:52 PM 697 Views
Re: I think you are missing his point - 14/10/2010 03:49:14 PM 673 Views
Actually you can very much debate whether homosexuality is a sin on a textual level - 14/10/2010 05:49:22 PM 714 Views
Re: Actually you can very much debate whether homosexuality is a sin on a textual level - 14/10/2010 08:52:24 PM 729 Views
Do you know greek or hebrew? - 14/10/2010 08:57:32 PM 584 Views
I know a few words here and there, but not really. Do you? - 14/10/2010 10:46:36 PM 715 Views
I don't look to Christianity for my answers - 15/10/2010 03:02:16 PM 690 Views
Re: I don't look to Christianity for my answers - 15/10/2010 04:27:25 PM 715 Views
You're kind of sidestepping a large part of his point - 13/10/2010 05:51:53 PM 730 Views
so should Christians abandon other religious conviction to stop bullying? - 13/10/2010 07:39:54 PM 636 Views
Re: You're kind of sidestepping a large part of his point - 13/10/2010 08:23:07 PM 650 Views
That seems a little myopic to me. - 14/10/2010 09:16:27 AM 644 Views
I think he is jackass that does not believe other's can have apoint of view - 13/10/2010 06:48:12 PM 622 Views
That's right, bullying would go away if we didn't have Christians to make moral judgements on things - 13/10/2010 08:11:27 PM 712 Views
I mostly agree - 13/10/2010 08:19:00 PM 786 Views
most of the bullies I remember from school were not known for their regular church attendance - 14/10/2010 07:24:06 PM 594 Views
I thought I pretty much agreed with you on that point - 14/10/2010 07:44:07 PM 658 Views
Interesting - 13/10/2010 08:56:46 PM 945 Views
Sometime rants do work and change people's mind - 13/10/2010 09:23:39 PM 538 Views
and sometoimes they are just rants *NM* - 13/10/2010 10:01:55 PM 260 Views
Okay my response now - 14/10/2010 06:04:02 PM 674 Views
He becomes what he hates. - 14/10/2010 02:40:19 AM 805 Views
Good stuff. *NM* - 14/10/2010 02:56:44 AM 283 Views
Re: - 14/10/2010 03:06:36 AM 691 Views
I think Chora has dibs on that bumper sticker. - 14/10/2010 09:35:02 AM 762 Views
Re: - 14/10/2010 11:50:04 PM 703 Views
It's nothing at all like cultural relativism. - 15/10/2010 01:16:10 AM 605 Views
Re: It's nothing at all like cultural relativism. - 16/10/2010 05:20:56 AM 720 Views
Re: It's nothing at all like cultural relativism. - 16/10/2010 07:16:21 AM 627 Views
I don't think there is any question... - 14/10/2010 04:42:45 AM 666 Views
If I may quibble: - 14/10/2010 05:22:22 AM 493 Views
He's bullying Christians - 14/10/2010 04:47:13 AM 647 Views
I agree - 14/10/2010 04:09:23 PM 731 Views
Two seperate things are mingled here - 14/10/2010 09:50:42 AM 837 Views

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