Dan Savage's controversial comments about homophobia in the Bible at a high school journalists' conference

About two weeks ago, Dan made the following remarks to high school journalists during a convention called "Journalism on the Edge." Well, for some, Dan's comments were on the edge and many offended students left his presentation. Judge for yourself:



Read here for the resulting backlash from Christian groups.

Later, Dan apologized for his language and a few comments he made that day. However, The Economist artfully defends his overall thesis:

Mr Savage's apology did not stop the outrage machine. Some seem to have taken particular delight in hurling Mr Savage's epithets—bully and basher (of Christians and Christianity, rather than gays)—back at him. The American Thinker harrumphs, "Evidently, bullying is one of those things that is defined by the 'victim'." Well, yes: in fact it is. Bullying is the strong picking on the weak, not the other way around (the other way around is satire). One could make the argument that in the case of Mr Savage's speech, he was the strong one, and the high-school students were "victims", but that would be weak tea indeed. Mr Savage is one person, not a movement, and of course those students whom he gave the vapours were free to leave. Not everyone has such freedom. Gay teens, not Christian teens, kill themselves at higher rates than the general populace. Nobody calls Christianity an abomination. One blogger accused Mr Savage of "Christian-bashing" for pointing out the Bible's position on slavery. A writer for a Focus on the Family site said that "using profanity to deride the Bible...is obviously a form of bullying and name-calling." In fact it is neither: Mr Savage, however intemperate his language, was arguing, not name-calling. That is a crucial distinction, and one that too often eludes the showily devout. If the Bible is in fact the word of God it can survive a few arguments about context and application.

Yes, nobody calls Christianity an abomination. Christian fundamentalists leaders don't like that society is now confronting them over their fear and bigotry about gay people. Hence they claim they are being bullied. They feel threatened by the rise of women, people of color, and now the gays. A GOP legislator's wife in North Carolina said yesterday, she is afraid for "the caucasian race". Change is hard for some people, but discrimination and hatred is hard for all people.