Last month when Dan Savage told a group of high-school journalists that there was some “bullshit” in the Bible, it incensed National Organization for Marriage head Brian Brown, who invited Savage to debate the Good Book and marriage, “any time, any place.”
In today’s edition of the Savage Lovecast, Savage’s weekly call-in podcast, he accepted Brown’s challenge—and invited him to his house for a meal.
“What I’d like to do is invite you to dinner: Bring the wife. My husband will be there. I will hire a video crew and we will video sort of an after-dinner debate. You’ll have to acknowledge my humanity by accepting my hospitality, and I’ll have to acknowledge yours by extending my hospitality to you.”
Savage sayshe thought a lot about the form the debate would take, eschewing what he called “the colosseum route”:
“We could fill a room with my screaming partisans and your screaming partisans…. but I think that would create more heat than light.”
Savage says the debate would take place after the dishes were cleared and can cover any topic. It would be moderated by the New York Times‘ Mark Oppenheimer (who has written positive profiles of both Savage and former NOM head Maggie Gallagher) and eventually posted, unedited, on YouTube.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Charlie
/popcorn
jellybean
Love Dan Savage. He is relentless and fucking awesome!!!
JB97
I worship Dan’s big brass balls and I admire his ability to find the high road in these situations.
larrythegay
i cant wait
jellybean
Look at the torment that most religions have caused towards gay people. I don’t see Christians getting all bent about how they are percieved in society, so Dan doesn’t need to be apologetic or shy about expressing his views.
I am also an avid reader of his column and it’s pretty clear that he has a straight following also. And people seem to have become more educated due to his candid approach. Wishing bullies away and longing for a world of acceptance is not going to change things. We need someone that will voice our opinions and fight. I think Dan uses his platform well.
If you wanna call someone a loser, maybe it should be the numerous celebrities that haven’t come out yet. It’s obvious they’re just thinking of their bank accounts and fame.
reality
Does he ever wear anything other than that gray t-shirt?
He might be the grossest versatile moral relativist that has ever existed, but I hope he cleans the floor with that bloated jerk.
Michael Bedwell
Dan Savage has quickly become the Gay Rainman—so smart at some things, and dumb as a box of rocks in others. This is one of his “This is definitely not my underwear” moments.
Only someone with a scared little child inside would be so desperate to have a MONSTER like Brown be nice to him. Only someone with a MAMMOTH ego would think that he can succeed at out-arguing Scripture when over more than four decades gay theologians with more degrees and fluent in more Biblical source languages than Savage could ever hope to be have failed. From Rev. Troy Perry to Father John McNeil to “Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe” author John Boswell to Soulforce’s Mel White to the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, who was no less than the Plummer professor of Christian morals at the Harvard School of Divinity and the Pusey minister of Memorial Church who gave the benediction at President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration and delivered the National Cathedral sermon at the inauguration of George Bush pere. WHY did they fail? Because you can’t be intellectual with anti-intellectuals…which are what religiously-driven homohaters are. I was reared in a Holy Roller denomination and they consider it SACRILEGE, HERESY, ANTI-GOD for them to even consider that what they’ve been taught isn’t “true.”
Worst of all is that agreeing to “debate” a CIVIL right with ANYONE is to give
credibility to the idea that it’s okay to VOTE on other people’s civil rights. To
paraphrase Rachel Maddow: they’re not supposed to be debated—that’s why they’re called “rights.”
Too bad Adolph and Eva aren’t still around—Savage could invite them to dinner, too, and “humane” them out of all gas the Jews silliness.
Ogre Magi
@Michael Bedwell: So many Christians, so few lions!
iDavid
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is more believable than the basic framework of the Bible.
Dan Savage has a way of cutting through his own past programming where others are still stuck. It will be interesting to see if Brian Brown will take the jello route or actually get real. If anyone can nail jello to a wall, it’s Dan Savage. I like the fact SOMEONE is taking the retarded areas of the most suppressive book on Earth and calling it’s writers out for who they are, humanoids w nothing more than viciously controlling imaginations.
keoki3
Riiiiight?
DC
Instead, he should invite the NOM’ Thomas Peters, the late 20s, unmarried and oh so gay looking Communications Director.
Michael Bedwell
@Ogre Magi:
AMEN!
cam
Brian Brown can’t debate because his only argument is to make broad non-factual statements and then not respond to follow up questions.
He sits there, says “God Says” and then covers his ears to keep his own gay voices from telling him to reach out and touch whatever man is sitting closest to him.
He will find some way to claim that Savage’s invitation is a bullying attack and will NEVER accept.
Martin
*Yawn* This is completely pointless. Savage is showing yet again how he’s nothing but a pointless media whore.
nikko
@Martin: Really? just a media whore? How about a truth teller when it comes to religious bullshit? Huh?
Blah, bla..huh?
@Michael Bedwell: It shouldn’t matter what happens to jerkwad xtian, he should be contested in the public domain he hides from, and exposed for the un-American sabateur that he is. If Dan loses the pseudo-“theology” debate, who cares. Moral cyphers calling us relativists know not of what they speak, and if this fat ass in particular did, he’d be too intimidated by his own cohort to tell the truth anyway. The public needs to know about the real agenda these “patriots” have, and Dan is a perfect position to lend his service. The more they get called to account, the worse they and their psychotic “god” look at the end of the day.
Dave
Nikko-If you really need drama queen and media whore Dan Savage to tell you the truth about Fundamentalist religions you’re not that intelligent.