I’m sure you’ve already read about world-renowned Biblical scholar Dan Savage’s harangue against Leviticus where he reacted to some students who walked out on his speech by calling them “pansies”. The student walk-out was precipitated by Professor of Sexytime Studies Savage’s declaration that the Levitican laws he doesn’t like are “bullshit”. As far as I’ve seen, the only anti-bullying NoH8r bully who has sorta-kinda condemned Savage’s comments has been world-renowned MS Paint penis-drawer Perez Hilton. (Yeah, that gets a big, giant WTF? And I am sorry about that link but it had to be done.)
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?
Awww. That’s sweet.
Otherwise, the response from the Left consists mainly of the type of smarmy culture-warring we’ve become accustomed to.
Just who does this podium-pounding pontificator peddling in people’s perplexingly perverse predilections think he is, anyway?
Uhhh…as Mr. T might say: cut out the jibba-jabba.
But that oh-so-clever piece of sarcasm from Señor Shore, in an oblique manner, gets to my point. Whether the Bible unambiguously condemns homosexuality or not is neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned. That’s an argument which I’m sure will rage until old Sol expands to a red giant and the Earth is burned to a dead cinder. What I’m more concerned with is hip and edgy gym assembly speakers–”podium-pounding pontificator peddling in people’s perplexingly perverse predilections”. I realize that Dan Savage Love Man wasn’t speaking at a gym assembly, but he may as well have been.
I have no desire to suppress Savage’s anti-bullying message (though I do think it is, to borrow a word from the speaker himself, “bullshit” for many different reasons) nor do I want to try to keep him from speaking to teens, but I do have a bone to pick with the way he chooses to go about it.
If you are pretending to be a serious person lecturing a room full of teenagers on what you think is a serious subject, you don’t curse. Contrary to what you may have told yourself, it doesn’t make you hip. To teenagers, if you are an adult you are by definition old and old is inherently lame. Yes, you want to try to give the kids something to relate to in order to hold their attention, maybe shock them a little to keep them from falling asleep, but trying to be a hip, cool adult by swearing at them undermines your credibility and distracts from your message.
I’m not so concerned with the swears, though–that’s a minor issue–what I’m more concerned with is the overweening edginess. Teenagers come pre-primed with edginess and there is no need to throw more gasoline onto that fire. Granted, it’s a technique with a long history but that doesn’t justify exploiting teen hormonal imbalance and insanity. It is possible, and preferable, to gain teenagers’ attention and convey a serious message to them without resorting to pandering to their hair-trigger emotions with cheap rhetorical theatrics.
But I don’t think Dan Savage cares about any of that. Yes, I’m sure we’re looking at some intent-to-indoctrinate here, but what I see much, much more of is the speaker’s self-interest. What I’m seeing isn’t about The Children, it isn’t about not h8ing, it’s about what Dan Savage can do for himself and his organization. Anti-bullying bullshit has become big business, with federal backing and everything, and people like Savage are profiting from it.
I suppose, in the end though, at least Savage didn’t call those kids “f*gs”, because that would have been a million times worse. Amirite or amirite?
[UPDATE]
Dan Savage Love Man sure hates bullies, but he sure likes bully-boy tactics.
Dan Savage may have apologized for calling Christian students “pansy-assed” for walking out on his anti-religious diatribe, that that’s not stopping his newspaper from pushing property destruction.
Why would anyone use targeted vandalism as a means of political expression? It’s a very, very old tactic, dating back to Jesus smashing up the moneylenders’ kiosks in the temple. And it is still popular among some, but totally anathema to most, today.
Nice touch throwing in Jesus there.
Shameless. Utterly shameless.
