Friday, April 27, 2012

Speaker At Conference About Anti-Bullying Is A Bully Himself

From Fox News: As many as 100 high school students walked out of a national journalism conference after an anti-bullying speaker began cursing, attacked the Bible and reportedly called those who refused to listen to his rant “pansy asses.”
The speaker was Dan Savage, founder of the “It Gets Better” project, an anti-bullying campaign that has reached more than 40 million viewers with contributors ranging from President Obama to Hollywood stars. Savage also writes a sex advice column called “Savage Love.”
Savage, and his husband, were also guests at the White House for President Obama’s 2011 LGBT Pride Month reception. He was also invited to a White House anti-bullying conference.....
Rick Tuttle, the journalism advisor for Sutter Union High School in California, was among several thousand people in the audience. He said they thought the speech was one thing – but it turned into something else.
“I thought this would be about anti-bullying,” Tuttle told Fox news. “It turned into a pointed attack on Christian beliefs.”
Tuttle said a number of his students were offended by Savage’s remarks – and some decided to leave the auditorium.
“It became hostile,” he said. “It felt hostile as we were sitting in the audience – especially towards Christians who espouse beliefs that he was literally taking on.”
Tuttle said the speech was laced with vulgarities and “sexual innuendo not appropriate for this age group.” At one point, he said Savage told the teenagers about how good his partner looked in a speedo.
The conservative website CitizenLink was the first to report about the controversy. They interviewed a 17-year-old girl who was one of students who walked out of the auditorium.
“The first thing he told the audience was, ‘I hope you’re all using birth control,’” she told CitizenLink. “he said there are people using the Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and Romans that being gay is wrong. Right after that, he said we can ignore all the (expletive deleted) in the Bible.”
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/anti-bullying-speaker-curses-mocks-christian-teens.html
And of course, the sponsors of the conference never apologized:  
The executive director of the National Scholastic Press Association provided Fox News with joint statement from the Journalism Education Association that was sent to members – after a number of people complained about Savage’s remarks. “We appreciate the level of thoughtfulness and deliberation regarding Dan Savage’s keynote address,” the NSPA wrote. “some audience members who felt hurt by his words and tone decided to leave in the middle of his speech, and to this, we want to make our point very clear: While as a journalist it’s important to be able to listen to sthe peech that offends you, these students and advisers had simply reached their tolerance level for what they were willing to hear.”
The NSPA said they did not have a prior transcript of Savage’s speech and that wish “he had stayed more on target for the audience of teen journalists.” They also said it provided a “teachable moment” for students.
First, most of the high school students are not journalists, therefore they should not be treated like journalists.
But,of course, thug Savage only targeted Christians.  Why didn't he go after Muslims?  Maybe he feels threatened if he criticized Muslims because he knows that his life would be in danger.  So, this moron decided to go after Christians because they are an easy target. Just like a bully, go after the weaker religion.
So, the National Scholastic Press Association shows that they really are like the real press.   They have a liberal agenda and they want to force their views on potential journalists. Just like the liberal press does to their readers in real life.

3 comments:

  1. I hardly think Christianity is a "weaker" religion, particularly in America. And Dan Savage comes with a fairly hefty resume. . .you'd think the people who hired him to speak would know who they were getting. It's like hiring Madonna or Kathy Griffin or Margaret Cho, and then getting offended by their acts.

    This slant on the story is posted by a conservative news operation, and sources another conservative site for "breaking the story." I'd like another perspective. Because as a gay, irreligious person myself, I'm inclined to side with Dan. . .Savage. Gay people take a lot of crap from religion--and in America that means largely Christianity--but the religous seem largely incapable of taking it when they get it back.

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  2. Dan (not Savage), I've sought out other sources on this, and it would seem there aren't any that I could find. At least there aren't any straight-news reports, with more than fragmented, second-hand quotes. This sounds very overblown to me, like the "One Million Moms" many tempests in teapots. You know, like bullet-pointed lists of the offensive things in the "GCB" show.

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  3. Hey, I found commentary on the incident from the source! It sounds like the comments were genuine, but pretty much limited to the brief second-hand quotes. It's not like he spun his head around, spewed pea soup, and cursed like a sailor.

    Again, I think Savage probably should have tailored his commentary to his audience. But on his points, I'm in agreement. Here are his comments:

    http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/04/29/on-bullshit-and-pansy-assed

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