Gay KidsAre Dying: #@*! Your Feelings. A Rant By Dan Savage

Gay Kids Are Dying, #@*! Your Feelings

October 14, 2010

Dear Dan: I was listening to the radio yesterday morning, and 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, and I know for a fact that is true of many other people who disagree with your viewpoint.

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.

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: #@*! 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.


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Great post.

It's why I have gone from being very religious to understanding that if your a good person, to the core, that is what counts...

and if, or whatever is out there, is loving enough to start this thing called life, will understand I tried my best.

Core values be damned. They shalt not judge. Pretty simple I think, If someone wants to marry so be it. It is their life not yours. The pursuit of happiness. We as people are garunteed annaible rights as free men and women. Free from persacution and judgement.

Most prejudice is misguided believes and misunderstanding. But the activist due forget something and it is bigger than the bullying. A young man or women is more than likely to commit suicide if no one is willing to see the signs and help them. And when they are afraid to tell their family for fear they will not be loved anymore.

Its is a sad world we live in.

wow, so much wrong here. i'll leave it at that

This might get into a religious topic which goes against our rules... We all know where they end up.

Religion is your personal opinion. What you follow is up to you.

I can point out where someone is not following what they propose to believe in. This means you...

Boobinspector wrote:Core values be damned. They shalt not judge. Pretty simple I think, If someone wants to marry so be it. It is their life not yours. The pursuit of happiness. We as people are garunteed annaible rights as free men and women. Free from persacution and judgement.

Most prejudice is misguided believes and misunderstanding. But the activist due forget something and it is bigger than the bullying. A young man or women is more than likely to commit suicide if no one is willing to see the signs and help them. And when they are afraid to tell their family for fear they will not be loved anymore.

Its is a sad world we live in.

I think this is the first post I enjoyed reading from you hella post man.

I had horrible believes before I joined the military. It helped open my eyes (The military). The most gratifing thing that the military gave me and I wish to continue, was the fact knowing you help provide and protect the rights we all take for granted.

God bless for we are a lucky few.

"I hate people who hate people!"
"I'm not prejudice, I hate everybody equally!"

I'm with you Will! I've never been into religion. I've always tried to do what I believe is best for me in the course of life and I believe I've done a fairly good job at it...so far.

I have the upmost respect for the US military for all they have done for us and allow us to have the freedoms we have today! Of course there are always "bad apples"...even in the military, but not enough to have me not respect them as a whole!!!!!