(Author's note: Why didn't I get as much attention for calling
some beliefs "crap" ? Some people have all the luck!)
And the date of the battle may be announced as early as today.
At a high school journalism convention, anti-bullying and gay activist Dan
Savage (founder, It Gets Better movement and creator of the neologism
"Santorum"), as is his want, made a crude remark making a point we
all know: parts of the Bible are simply ... bullsh*t. However, he didn't say
that the Bible was ALL bullsh*t, just parts of it, especially some of the laws
of Leviticus. Some students showed their disdain for Savage's comments by
walking out.*
Now people (aka FOX News) are calling Dan Savage a bully
...and THE WAR has begun.
Glenn Beck's THE
BLAZE:
ANTI-BULLYING
CRUSADER ATTACKS THE BIBLE AND CURSES CHRISTIAN TEENS DURING HIGH SCHOOL
SPEECH**
Front and center in the phalanx of Christian Right critics
is Brian Brown - considered by some to be the chief bully against gay rights and same sex marriage. The National Organization for Marriage's president became
absolutely incensed at Savage's "savaging" (Brown's wit is
astounding) of the Bible. Yes, that's the same National Organization for
Marriage (NOM) that tried unsuccessfully to boycott Starbuck's for its support
of same-sex marriage.***
Let
me lay down a public challenge to Dan Savage right here and now: You want to
savage the Bible? Christian morality? Traditional marriage? Pope Benedict? I'm
here, you name the time and the place and let's see what a big man you are in a
debate with someone who can talk back. It's easy to make high-school girls cry
by picking on them. Let's pick on someone our own size!
You
will find out out how venal and ridiculous your views of these things are if
you dare to accept a challenge.
Lines have been drawn. Souvenir dueling pistals are being made. National
bookies are taking bets. People are praying that the event take place near
their home so that they won't have to break their bank accounts on airfare to
attend the event. Forget the upcoming election debates - this will be the one for
the history books.
But what exactly is this "war" about? The horrendously rotten,
bullying, evil, persecuting passage of Dan Savage's speech:
"People often point
out that they can't help it. They can't help with the anti-gay bullyings
because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it
says right there in Romans that being gay is wrong. We can learn to ignore the
bullshit in the Bible about gay people the same way we have learned to ignore
the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about
farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore
bullshit in the Bible about all sorts of things.
The immediate context of the offending speech is here.
Savage points out the strict Leviticus laws concerning slavery and stoning
women who have been found not to be virgins before marriage ("Calista
Gingrich lives") and focuses on the fact that we totally discount such
concepts while taking the one concept of homosexuality and making
discrimination against gays legitimate. He was making the bullying point of
"you're going to hell" ridiculous, i.e:
"bullshit."
What
the incident brought out, however, is that an enormous over-sensitivity to
anything dealing with the Bible is...bullshit. Students began walking out once
the Bible was mentioned. Their brains shut down before Savage's point could
even be formed. The possibility of the entire walk out having been staged has
been discussed: knee-jerk reactions can be suspicious.
Note in the clip below, the fact that FOX News' Steve Doocy says nothing about
the applause and laughter Savage's speech also created. In fact, the amount of
students in agreement far outnumbered the dissidents, conveniently making
"Christianity" look like a persecuted minority.
For the convenience of Savage's critics, I created a Wordle with a graphic that
NOM can use, it being in the form of a wedge - NOM's
favorite shape . It's too bad that the word "bullsh*t" wound up to
be so small because Savage only said it about three times. (If you click on the
actual Wordle it is easier to read).
So the uproar is really it's own "bullshit" - but the debate promises
to spawn super bullshit from the losers: Odds are on
Savage to win, but "belief" and twisted reasoning will belong to
Brown in the end. Leave it to the likes of Glenn Beck and Steve Doocy to see to
it.
*Some people think the walk-out was suspiciously contrived since, you will
notice in the video, students began to walk out BEFORE the offensive term.
**Evidently being called "pansy-assed" is extreme
cursing. (NOTE: this article was posted under the heading of
"Science" WTF?)
*** Starbuck's stock remains at an all-time high.
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