On Sunday, Dan Savage took to his blog to apologize for some controversial comments he made at an anti-bullying event. Savage said he shouldn’t have used the term “pansy-ass” and noted that he was not attacking Christianity, but rather, he was attacking hypocrisy.
Savage has faced some backlash after a California high school teacher had some students walk out of the event he was giving a speech at. He had said:
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 bullshit in the Bible about gay people.
Other remarks from Savage included:
You can tell the Bible guys in the hall they can come back now because I’m done beating up the Bible. It’s funny to someone who is on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible how pansy-ass people react when you push back.
In his post, Savage said, “I would like to apologize for describing that walk out as a pansy-assed move. I wasn’t calling the handful of students who left pansies (2800+ students, most of them Christian, stayed and listened), just the walk-out itself.” But, he added, “that’s a distinction without a difference.” It was “name-calling” and “wrong,” Savage said, “and I apologize for saying it.”
Regarding his comments about Christianity, he said (emphasis his):
I didn’t call anyone’s religion bullshit. I did say that there is bullshit—”untrue words or ideas”—in the Bible. That is being spun as an attack on Christianity. Which is bullshhh… which is untrue. I was not attacking the faith in which I was raised. I was attacking the argument that gay people must be discriminated against—and anti-bullying programs that address anti-gay bullying should be blocked (or exceptions should be made for bullying “motivated by faith”)—because it says right there in the Bible that being gay is wrong. Yet the same people who make that claim choose to ignore what the Bible has to say about a great deal else. I did not attack Christianity. I attacked hypocrisy. My remarks can only be read as an attack on all Christians if you believe that all Christians are hypocrites. Which I don’t believe.
(H/T Washington Post)
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