Savage wasn’t trying to make a statement on how ancient civilizations lived in regards to slavery; his point was how ludicrous it is to take the bible literally, in the present time, and cherry pick certain passages to use this as a weapon or catalyst to spurn hateful actions, which is what people like Fred Phelps and his kind do.

Translation: I don’t care what it SAYS, this is what I believe it says. How corrupt. Ruin people’s careers and lives for the sake of such nonsense. And people listen to this nonsense?

In whatever context that this image comes up in in the future, its going to need an explanation. The sort of explanation which, at best, is going to stretch our credibility and, at worst, make us appear to be screaming harpies out to put Christians in jail.

He had an opportunity to speak truth & to try to change minds. His juvenile level of discourse allowed him to do the former while working against the second goal. So much so that, in my opinion, he has placed the relevance of the whole It Gets Better Project in jeopardy.

And Andrew, we all have to start somewhere. It was in thinking about this issue, in particular, and in my response to Priya, that I found my direction & voice. I guess I let the excitement of new creation get the better of me.

As a further excuse I’m awfully bad at understanding “internet manners”. Is there a crash-course out there for dunces like me?

Regardless, I was out of line. I do apologize to you both.

I have no problem with religion. But those who pick one set of rules for themselves and a different one for others aren’t religious, they are saying “you can’t argue with me because God said so and I’m here to speak on his behalf” – very neat, very tidy, very authoritative. And blasphemous.

“on my blog”? OMG. I thought I strayed into pretentiousness and self-importance (which I do). In the name of the golden rule – I would hope folks would stop me before I started looking silly, Blake, you’ve been officially notified. That posting made you temporarily look silly. It’s not permanent, and it’s not who you are. I like you. It’s just what you were doing in that moment.

Sorry, folks, I just don’t line up with apologists here. I’m not in favor of picking fights where none exist, but if we continue to cede ground, to meet aggression with acceptance, to refuse to point out that people who are anti-gay should be called out and told that their anti-gay views are not acceptable (with humor if possible), then we might as well hand the world over to jack-booted thugs.

That’s crap.

You know what is bullying? Walking out on a speaker, fundamentally, because of their identity. I’m really not at all sure that these students would have walked out on a straight married professor, for example.

I’m 100% with Dan. These students, and anti-gays generally, need to be called out on exactly what their behavior is – cowardly and hypersensitive… which is think is often summarized as “pansy-assed”.

And for those who aren’t paying attention in the post-modern era, “pansy-assed” ain’t just for gays anymore. It’s for anyone who fails in the courage of their convictions, who chooses to run away when they can make a point in public, but never hesitate to attack when they can get away with it. For those who apply the a different standard to others than they hold for themselves. Dan may have started the “it gets better” campaign, but he’s been very specific about the fact that you can only be insulted by someone calling you a name if YOU choose to be. Which brings me back to the mechanics of bullying.

Bullying isn’t just saying bad things, it’s a dynamic, an intent, and I think we used to know bullying when we saw it. If this is going to become “don’t say anything uncomfortable to anyone, ever”, or “don’t use profanity”, or even “all name calling in all circumstances is bullying”, which is a false equivalanency, then I’m walking on the whole thing.

As to slavery, I think the tell lies in the so-called Curse of Canaan (or Ham for some). Noah got drunk from the first grape harvest. His son Ham saw him naked and laughed at him instead of covering him. As punishment, God turned Ham’s son black and, in the words of Genesis, ‘kinked his hair’ and declared that he must serve his brothers and his children his brothers’ children to the end of time. Thereby setting up a slave class. I think that tells exactly what the writers thought of black slaves.

Rev Loush is also correct in that slavery in the ancient world was not really equivalent to what it was in the US. It was more like serfdom in Russia than the chattel slavery here.

And let’s not forget the custom of Jubilee: every 50 years the horn of jubilee was blown and the slaves became free.

Plus, Dan Savage is a gadfly. He’s supposed to be provocative. That’s what he does. His language seems entirely appropriate to me. As M Bussee notes, if you’re in journalism class you better be prepared to listen to real people talking. He was criticizing the way the Bible is used as a weapon, not the faith itself. This looks like a put-up job.

I’m reminded of some idiot teaching theatre who wouldn’t look at plays with gay topics: in which case find something else to do.

One fun thing I like to do when I see too many exclamation points is mentally replace them with question marks.