UGH.
Dan Savage, writer and creator of the It Get’s Better campaign, encountered a walkout during his speech at the National High School Journalist Conference in Seattle, when he said, “We can learn to ignore the bull—t in the Bible about gay people.”
Knowing Savage as we do, we know he wasn’t saying Christianity was bullish** or that religion in general is bullish**. He was merely pointing out that certain aspects of the Bible are outdated and simply wrong — specifically anti-gay sentiments — which makeup perhaps .00009% of the text.
Click (above) to see the whole messy business go down!
Savage later called the walk-out “pansy-a**ed” which, from someone who helms an anti-bullying campaign, is obviously a very negative thing to say.
But Savage has since apologized for his “pansy” remark, claiming he was calling the act itself “pansy-assed” and not the students. He goes on to say:
I didn’t call anyone’s religion bullshit. I did say that there is bullshit├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥”untrue words or ideas”├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥in the Bible. That is being spun as an attack on Christianity. Which is bullshhh├óΓé¼┬ª which is untrue. I was not attacking the faith in which I was raised. I was attacking the argument that gay people must be discriminated against├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥and anti-bullying programs that address anti-gay bullying should be blocked (or exceptions should be made for bullying “motivated by faith”)├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥because it says right there in the Bible that being gay is wrong. Yet the same people who make that claim choose to ignore what the Bible has to say about a great deal else. I did not attack Christianity. I attacked hypocrisy.
Religion is certainly a tricky mistress!
Can’t we just be good and kind to each other? Isn’t faith in love and honesty and kindness all any of us really need?