Yesterday I blogged about Dan Savage giving a speech at the National High School Journalism Convention, where some students walked out after he said parts of the Bible are “bullshit.” He kept going with his speech, and then said of the walkouts, “It’s funny, as someone who is on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-assed some people react when you push back.”Despite a few leaving the convention, 2,800 students stayed to listen to the remainder of what he had to say, understanding that his speech wasn’t an attack on Christianity, but hypocrisy.
“I didn’t call anyone’s religion bullshit. I did say that there is bullshit—”untrue words or ideas”—in the Bible. That is being spun as an attack on Christianity. Which is bullshhh… 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—and anti-bullying programs that address anti-gay bullying should be blocked (or exceptions should be made for bullying “motivated by faith”)—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. My remarks can only be read as an attack on all Christians if you believe that all Christians are hypocrites. Which I don’t believe.”
For Savage’s full blog, click here.
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