"Anti-Bullying Speaker Curses Christian Teens"

**Karen El** · 05-04-2012, 02:16 PM

That was the headline at Fox News Radio about Dan Savage's speech at a high school journalism convention. What he actually said was this:

The Bible. We'll just talk about the Bible for a second. People often point out that they can't help it -- they can't help with the anti-gay bullying, 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 bulls**t in the Bible about gay people. The same way, the same way we have learned to ignore the bulls**t in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bulls**t in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it. The shortest book in the New Testament is a letter from Paul to a Christian slave owner about owning his Christian slave. And Paul doesn't say "Christians don't own people." Paul talks about how Christians own people.

We ignore what the Bible says about slavery, because the Bible got slavery wrong. Tim -- uh, Sam Harris, in A Letter To A Christian Nation, points out that the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong. Slavery. What're the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? One hundred percent.

The Bible says that if your daughter's not a virgin on her wedding night -- if a woman isn't a virgin on her wedding night, she shall be dragged to her father's doorstep and stoned to death. Callista Gingrich lives. And there is no effort to amend state constitutions to make it legal to stone women to death on their wedding night if they're not virgins. At least not yet. We don't know where the GOP is going these days.

People are dying because people can't clear this one last hurdle. They can't get past this one last thing in the Bible about homosexuality.

Um, one other thing I wanna talk about is -- [chuckles] -- so, you can tell the Bible guys in the hall that they can come back now, because I'm done beating up the Bible. It's funny, as someone who's on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-assed some people react when you push back.

I apologize if I hurt anyone's feelings. But. I have a right to defend myself. And to point out the hypocrisy of people who justify anti-gay bigotry by pointing to the Bible, and insisting we must live by the code of Leviticus on this one issue and no other.

Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/2012/04/dan...#ixzz1twRbYrgb

Apparently quoting the Bible accurately is now considered oppressing Christians.

**Craig C** · 05-04-2012, 02:25 PM

Originally Posted by Karen El

That was the headline at Fox News Radio about Dan Savage's speech at a high school journalism convention. What he actually said was this:

Apparently quoting the Bible accurately is now considered oppressing Christians.

Sigh I miss Hitchens

**Chris Jones** · 05-04-2012, 02:26 PM

Considering it's Fox News they probably reported the story as though he was putting a literal hex on the crowd.

**JBK405** · 05-04-2012, 04:18 PM

I was originally going to write a long-winded, "academic" post here going over that speech, but I decided to shorten it down to its most basic point: Absolutely correct.

I am religious, observant, and consider myself a "true" Jew, but the fact of the matter is that, even according to itself, the bible was not actually written by god (Except the Ten Commandments, that's accepted as being "really" written by god). Everything there was written by people who were interpreting and relating and translating. They were writing from their own perspective, their own culture, and the fact of the matter is that they got stuff wrong.

Believe me, that's not easy for me to deal with, and I've had an ongoing crisis of faith for about ten years as I try to come to terms with "picking and choosing" what parts of the bible I want to accept, but the fact of the matter is that (Even accepting, for the sake of argument, that god exists as an infallible being with complete moral authority) the world has changed, some stuff was wrong even then, and it was all writen down by people with their own agendas and their own axes to grind.

I try to live my life as a "good Jew," but anybody who tries to justify their actions with "the bible says so" is working from a fundamentally flawed position because, according to their own book, it's not "god says XXXX," it's "I spoke to god, and he told me, a guy who is a product of my time and my pre-existingsocial mores and who has his own hates and flaws, that this is what we're supposed to do."

**MacQuarrie** · 05-04-2012, 04:29 PM

It amazes me that Christians deny the fundamental point of what Jesus said:

"I'll take care of sin and judgment and punishment, that's not your job. In fact, I've already taken care of it. You go be good to each other and to the people you don't like, especially the people you don't like. That's your assignment: Go find the people you look down on, sneer at, have contempt for, the ones you hate; go find them, and be nice to them. Be kind to them. Feed them if they're hunger, clothe them if they are cold, comfort them if they are sick or in prison, love them as I have loved you. Whatever you do to them, you do to me. I have forgiven their sins the same way I forgave yours, so don't go judging them or I'll judge you, and you really don't want that. Is any part of this unclear? Good."

On the subject of Leviticus, he said "if you want to make a big deal about obeying one point of the law, you get to be judged on all of it. You want to proclaim that you never committed murder, well, hate is committing murder in your heart, and that counts, if we want to keep score. I don't want to keep score, and you don't want me to. So knock it off. Go love your neighbor."

It's really easy to be a Christian if you stop trying to tell God how to run things.

**JBK405** · 05-04-2012, 04:36 PM

Also, and this is something that pisses me off as a historian and (not flutent, but knowledgeable of the basics) speaker of Hebrew: the word "abomination" (Which is the word used to describe homosexual relationships in Leviticus) does not meant what you think it means!

The word "abomination" in Biblical Hebrew had a meaning similar to "unclean;" it's still certainly negative, but it does not mean "Unholy and go to hell!" It is not a particularly strong condemnation. Homosexuality is, when you get right down it, something that the bible writers didn't even care enough about to seriously rail against. It's like....it's like jaywalking. We tell people not to do it, and we set up fines, but the fact of the matter is that we don't really care because, come on, it's jaywalking. That's what the ancient Hebrews thought of homosexuality; they disapproved, but they're not going to waste time dealing with it because they've got more important things to deal with (Like all that stoning and whatnot). They spent more time on the dietary laws, bathing rituals and how to walk than they did on homosexuality.

In a way, the religious opposition to gay rights is he biggest nerd overreaction of all time: They find one single line, take it out of context, and spend a thousand years fighting about what it means.

**Tobias M** · 05-04-2012, 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by Karen El

Apparently quoting the Bible accurately is now considered oppressing Christians.

Well technically Pre-Vatican II Catholicism does constrain its followers from reading the Bible. That's why Protestants were given the stinkeye, they'd actually read the thing.

**Benel Germosen** · 05-04-2012, 05:34 PM

That's the thing. It doesn't matter how logically you break shit down to people. Those who are most fervently in their belief don't actually care about right and wrong. They care about winning.

A lot of Christians could give a shit about the teachings of Christ. They just want to be on the winning side.

**zemo** · 05-04-2012, 10:23 PM

Originally Posted by Benel Germosen

That's the thing. It doesn't matter how logically you break shit down to people. Those who are most fervently in their belief don't actually care about right and wrong. They care about winning.

A lot of Christians could give a shit about the teachings of Christ. They just want to be on the winning side.

Well, it's Charlie Sheen's side, who wouldn't want to be there?

**Tyr** · 05-05-2012, 12:38 AM

Originally Posted by MacQuarrie

It amazes me that Christians deny the fundamental point of what Jesus said:

"I'll take care of sin and judgment and punishment, that's not your job. In fact, I've already taken care of it. You go be good to each other and to the people you don't like, especially the people you don't like. That's your assignment: Go find the people you look down on, sneer at, have contempt for, the ones you hate; go find them, and be nice to them. Be kind to them. Feed them if they're hunger, clothe them if they are cold, comfort them if they are sick or in prison, love them as I have loved you. Whatever you do to them, you do to me. I have forgiven their sins the same way I forgave yours, so don't go judging them or I'll judge you, and you really don't want that. Is any part of this unclear? Good."

I think I can shorten that even further from an embroidery that was hanging in a friends bathroom. "You know that love thy neighbor thing? I mean it." God.

Did I mention that embroidery before? I'm a bit hungover from toasting my fallen friend so I'm not sure.