Watching the Dan Savage video again.
The first student walks out after Savage says let’s talk about the bible for a second, because people point out “that 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.” Boom, she’s up.
That’s very quick. That’s very quick.
Why so quick?
It’s true that people say that. Why is she leaving just because Savage says people say that? Why is she leaving so fast when he hasn’t even said “bullshit” yet?
We can learn to ignore the bullshit about gay people in the bible, the same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner
And the second student is up and on his way out.
about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation.
Two more up and leaving.
We ignore bullshit in the bible about all sorts of things.
And now it’s a torrent and you can’t count any more.
The bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slaveowners waved bibles over their heads during the Civil War.
Bigger torrent. Lots of smirking.
The shortest book in the bible is a letter from Paul to a man who owned slaves. And Paul doesn’t say, “Christians don’t own people.” Paul says how Christians own people.
No more walkouts.
We ignore what the bible says about slavery because the bible got slavery wrong.
Two stragglers leave.
It does look orchestrated. Or it looks as though that first one, who was on her feet after one sentence, inspired a bunch of others.
Pretty inauthentic isn’t it. Not leaving out of moral outrage, but out of moral cowardice.
Orchestrated. Look at their faces: just smirking & giggling, they don’t look particularly angry or offended. I noticed at least one giggling girl looking slightly embarrassed as if she was doing it only because she’d been told to.
Quite possibly orchestrated, and the students were not a bit upset – so don’t apologize, Dan. You didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings; they’re playing a game.
Did somebody say something about bullshit?
I’ve watched it a few times too. I noticed one person seemed to be wearing a cross type thing. Another was shaking her head, with a “that’s so wrong” sort of expression. I think that was around the slavery portion of the talk. I have no way of knowing if this was planned or not, but if it was a spontaneous exodus, I really want to blame it on the notion that these are young people, fully indoctrinated in the religion of their parents, and have never been exposed to (or sought) views that are contrary to what they were told. My point being, maybe there’s some hope for them? But it does really depress me in that this shows how far we have to go before we can even accurately describe, let alone criticize, the scribblings of iron-age goat herders to the folks that believe those scribblings are magic without this kind of reaction taking place. Sigh.
One was definitely wearing a cross. It was so conspicuous I wondered if she actually aimed for the lens.
Do these miserable cretins think that their walk-out will somehow magically erase the facts that Dan is stating? Typical theistic response to reality – rather than deal with it, they pretend it isn’t there. Pathetic moral cowards.
The comments on the video at YouTube are the worst part, and the best illustration of why Savage was right to do what he did.
Maybe the first one really had to go to the bathroom, perhaps she really needed a cigarette, maybe she just remembered that she left the oven on, and the rest just got the wrong idea about what she was doing.
— But seriously, yeah it looks orchestrated. If a person is walking out on a speaker as a result of being unexpectedly outraged and offended — they don’t smirk and giggle.
I thought it looked staged the first time I saw it. I didn’t see any outrage, any scowls of being offended, I saw people playing a game.
What a pansy-ass thing to do.
There’s nothing wrong with it being orchestrated IMO.
There’s everything wrong with them lying about it being orchestrated, and why they orchestrated it.
100% orchestrated — smirks? Laughter? Those are NOT the actions of offended people!
The walkout gave Dan Savage’s speech, and hence his message, significantly more publicity than it would received otherwise. So great!
Hey, very true. Classic Streisand effect. Maybe they’re all plants – maybe they’re all friends of Dan Savage’s!
Of course they also got their cause more publicity.
@ Rudi (#6):
Turns out what they thought is quite correct:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=417258004959333&l=5bde222e49
I’m not in the slightest surprised that there were smirks and laughter rather than obvious signs of offence. Remember these people are not offended by the concept of slavery and will attempt to defend it by context!!!!
The walkout was done to be seen to be walking out. It’s the righteous Christians and their persecution complex once more, with the hey see I’m a Christian I’m walking out, see me? I’m walking out! Mom, dad I walked out, aren’t I a good Christian!
As I pointed out in another blog I would have walked out too, if the walkies in front of me were hotties, then we could all have agreed that god isn’t really against per marital sex, along as it is between two walker outers, or possibly three if I figured out they were relly gullible. Ah to be eighteen again.
I’m more than a little suspicious that the walkout had little to do with “religious offence” and was more along the lines of “let’s try to embarass this faggot”.
One of the ubiquitous trolls on another thread asserts that the faces are bright and cheerful because they are doing something fine and upstanding. Uh huh. (The troll is one of the classic “I don’t want to hear what you have to say, but if you say it this way it will be more effective” type.)
I don’t think the smirks and laughter are evidence that it was planned. Actually, young people smirking and laughing is not necessarily evidence of anything… young people smirk and laugh at the most wildly inappropriate times and for no good reason. Hell, that’s one of the awesome things about being young, ain’t it?
That said, I also, on first viewing and without having anybody else suggest this to me, got the impression it might have been pre-planned. It’s hard to say. OTOH, how did they know he was going to address the Bible so directly? How would they know what the signal was?
I’m leaning at this point towards thinking it was not planned… but damn, it did sorta feel that way, didn’t it? So hard to say…
Agreed, the smirks don’t necessarily show that it was orchestrated. My other suggestion was that the first one inspired the others to follow. Could be either, or ardent conviction in each walker. But I do think the smirks show that the students weren’t upset. The more grim-faced ones may have been angry, but I really doubt that any of them were “upset” or “hurt” or that they felt “bullied.”
But then again maybe I just think that because I think they had no right to feel bullied, when they were protesting against a protest against real bullying. I mean, who is more bullied, those kids, or Jessica Ahlquist? Those kids, or the ones who killed themselves in Anoka-Hennepin school district?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=418640501487750&l=70193a86aa
Brilliant, Stewart!
Thanks! It was begging to be done.
There was no cry of “Don’t let the door hit you on your way out!”?
What a bunch of wankers!
I wonder if someone involved in production of the conference managed a peek at Savage’s notes for his talk.
~~~
“…because I think they had no right to feel bullied…”
Sadly, lot of
kidspeople have incredibly low capacity for emapthy. They are quick to howl when they think they are the victims, but quite content to victimize others.Has there been any actual evidence that the kids that left felt bullied? There have certainly been lots of assertions thereof by foaming at the mouth adults with no more knowledge of the whole tale than we have from the video, but is there any basis for the assertions?
There’s a form at the National Organization for Marriage set up to e-mail the president & your representative. I think it would be good to make use of it. I would suggest a rewording it to show support for Dan Savage. It’s at http://goo.gl/rZAFW
I reworded mine as follows (I added a sexual orientation category):