Thursday, June 21, 2012

Dan Savage, Using 'House Faggot' is Not Okay

 **I wrote this for Bilerico too**

Yesterday, GOProud announced their support for Mitt Romney. They put out a press release and took a couple pics to show their declaration. Well, after that announcement, Dan Savage Thumbnail image for savage_th.jpgwent on Twitter and tweeted his response.

He said: "The GOP's house faggots grab their ankles, right on cue."
Interesting quote to say the least. Dan was so upset that he just had to use the word "faggot" in his tweet.

Now, I know there are Dan fans that will say: "That's Dan," and "That's Dan style, he has always been that way." Okay, but it is still unacceptable. Dan's use of the F-word punches holes in his credibility. How are you going to tell millions of LGBT youth that the F-word is horrible and then turn around use towards another gay person?

I don't care if he was angry, it was still a stupid thing to say. And I'm a little bothered about how quiet the blogosphere is about this. If GOProud's co-founder Chris Barron had said the exact same thing, there would have been smoke in the city. In fact, the majority of the gay blogs would have made a mini-series out of the matter.
Dan should be held accountable for the using F-word. In fact, I would like to see GLAAD address the issue. They usually call out celebrities for using homophobic language in the media, so the least they can do is ask him for an apology. To ignore Dan's statement basically says that certain people have the right to use hateful statements. I'm sorry, but we can not allow that. No one should have pass to say the F-word.

If we want people to take our battle and cause seriously, we have to do the same. So I challenge us to hold Dan Savage accountable for his poor use of words. There was no excuse for it and we shouldn't try to provide one for him.

1 comment:

Ron Buckmire said...

Agreed. The part I don't understand is why people would be surprised when Dan Savage says things which are unacceptable. He does so repeatedly. This is not the first time. Hello, his use of the word "tranny" and his borderline racist comments post-Prop 8 have made it clear that he has "loose lips."

I agree that GLAAD should also be outraged when openly gay people use words which are defamatory to LGBT folks as well.

That doesn't mean Savage doesn't do good work--you can do good work AND make mistakes.

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Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.