Savaging the Bible

There's been a recent ruckus over Dan Savage's critique of the Bible at a recent student journalism conference, and there appeared to be a massive (likely-staged) walkout of ostensibly-Christian students. These are people who apparently cannot stand Savage's proper criticism of the harrowing bits of the Bible that promote slavery, the murder of women who are not virgins on their wedding nights and of course, the stoning of homosexuals.

Here's the text of Savage's speech, related to the Bible:

'The Bible. We'll just talk about the Bible for a second. 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 bulls**t in the Bible about gay people. The same way, the same way we have learned to ignore the bulls**t in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bulls**t in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it. The shortest book in the New Testament is a letter from Paul to a Christian slave owner about owning his Christian slave. And Paul doesn't say "Christians don't own people." Paul talks about how Christians own people.

We ignore what the Bible says about slavery, because the Bible got slavery wrong. Tim -- uh, Sam Harris, in A Letter To A Christian Nation, points out that the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong. Slavery. What're the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? One hundred percent.

The Bible says that if your daughter's not a virgin on her wedding night -- if a woman isn't a virgin on her wedding night, she shall be dragged to her father's doorstep and stoned to death. Callista Gingrich lives. And there is no effort to amend state constitutions to make it legal to stone women to death on their wedding night if they're not virgins. At least not yet. We don't know where the GOP is going these days.

People are dying because people can't clear this one last hurdle. They can't get past this one last thing in the Bible about homosexuality. Um, one other thing I wanna talk about is -- [chuckles] -- so, you can tell the Bible guys in the hall that they can come back now, because I'm done beating up the Bible. It's funny, as someone who's on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-assed some people react when you push back.

I apologize if I hurt anyone's feelings. But. I have a right to defend myself. And to point out the hypocrisy of people who justify anti-gay bigotry by pointing to the Bible, and insisting we must live by the code of Leviticus on this one issue and no other.'

This is something that's best heard from Dan Savage with how he puts it, and words he emphasizes. What Dan did was rightfully criticize a terrible instruction manual (The Bible), and the students who walked out on him are apparently DEFENDING the hate-speech that is the Bible.

My friends, criticizing hate-speech itself is NOT hate-speech, nor is it bullying, nor is it oppression. Resisting oppression is NOT itself oppression.

Dan Savage got it right. Shame on those delicate violets who couldn't even give him the honor of listening to his thoughtful and correct words, and I support Dan 100%. Those who can't even listen to dissent will make awful journalists. If one cannot bear to listen to opposing views, or weigh claims vs. each other, or follow the evidence where it leads, one is doomed to make a terrible journalist—outside of the Liberty University student newspaper or Faux news, perhaps. The fact that so many students felt compelled to walk-out is more evidence to my eyes that more conversation and education is needed—especially honest commentary like we've seen from Dan Savage. I'm proud to say that one of my nieces was there...and she didn't walk out. ;)

Please continue to 'Savage' the Bible Dan, you have the support of millions of us who rightly-see the Bible as the dangerous influence that it is.

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