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| Dan Savage |
It seems that Dan Savage has started a war with Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council.
Recently, Savage said the
following:
"every dead gay kid is a victory for the Family Research Council" and that "Tony Perkins sits on a pile of dead gay kids every day when he goes to work"
While I wouldn't have made the point so gruesomely, Savage is somewhat right.
FRC and Perkins have contributed - whether intentional or not - to the problem of depression and other negative behaviors amongst gay youth (lgbts in general) with their pointed attempts to undermine pro-gay information and visibility. Then they exploit these problems of negative behaviors by claiming that they are indicative of being gay rather than the results of homophobia. Homophobia, by the way, which is shielded by their efforts under the guise of religion.
Needless to say, Perkins was not happy. On the
Mike Huckabee show, he said the following:
As my teenagers would say, he has some issues. He is a man with some real deep-seated issues ... and Dan Savage is nowhere near, he's a hundred and eighty degrees from the positions that we have taken. It's wrong and I will tell you this, we are pursuing everything possible to deal with him because he is out of control.... This is the bottom line, Mike: is that if you don't embrace and celebrate homosexuality and everything associated with it, then you are intolerant. And the truth of the matter is, let's just be very, very truthful, and that's what we deal in is the truth, that even is society embraced homosexuality, there would never be that sense of self-fulfillment because it's outside the way God created man and woman. And that's the bottom line. They cannot erase that, even if they get every law on the books changed, it will never change that.
And there lies Perkins' dodge. It's not about "celebrating homosexuality," it's about not lying and spreading propaganda.
The fact of the matter is that if you do lie on gays (which FRC has done on many occasions) and you do spread hateful propaganda about gays (which FRC has also done), you are in fact intolerant.
No matter how many times you cling to God's name, you can't get away from that simple fact.
Savage was quick to
address that point (using one of my posts, by the way):
I have issues with people who would deny me and other LGBT people our
full civil equality for no legitimate reason. I have particular issues
with high-profile haters who encourage parents to reject their LGBT kids, doubling their already quadrupled risk for suicide. I have issues with people who say that LGBT people are "pawns of the devil." I have issues with people who compare LGBT people to terrorists. I have issues with people who falsely link homosexuality and pedophilia. I have issues with people who suggest that a law calling for the execution of gay people merely "upholds moral conduct."
Sue me, Tony. I'd love to see you talk about my "issues" on a witness stand.
I realize that this isn't how you think the world is supposed to
work, Tony. You believe—and you're old enough to remember a time
when—people like you were free to say vile and disgusting things about
people like me without anyone objecting. Certainly people like me
weren't allowed to call people like you out. You still believe you
should be free to lie about me and other LGBT people with absolutely
impunity—we're all pedophiles and terrorists and Satanists—and that we
should have to shut up and take it because... well, I'm not sure why you
think we're not allowed to respond when you lie about us. Maybe that's something we could get to the bottom of during the depositions.
Personally, I think Perkins is just bluster. He wouldn't dare take on Savage in a court of law.
But still, I can always hope.
