There's nothing like a controversy with Dan Savage at the center to get me back to blogging. I toyed with the idea of writing this as an open letter to Jay Michaelson, but this conversation is really broader than his critique or the responses to it or his responses to them.
I have at times been overwhelmingly supportive of both Mr. Savage and Mr. Michaelson and at other times highly critical of both of their discourses on LGBT life in America, its intersection with institutional powers, and what to do about the problem of homophobic rhetoric from outspoken haters of my queer siblings in American society and American religion.
In an article for The Daily Beast entitled "Is Dan Savage the Gay Santorum?", Mr. Michaelson attacks Mr. Savage for his rhetoric about the Bible in conversation with queerness. Mr. Michaelson argues that Mr. Savage buys into the organized religious conversation of homophobia and that he is pushing a false understanding of religion as in opposition to queerness. Mr. Michaelson argues that the social construction of sexuality and homosexuality, which dates from the 19th century, was not original to the Bible and has merely been read into it. While he is correct in recognizing that it need not be so, the Bible has been interpreted to reinforce the understanding of homosexuality as perversion and sin in society. Furthermore, Mr. Michaelson argues that we should understand the verses in the Bible which are commonly understood to prohibit anal sex among males narrowly and that religious communities which take or can take such a narrow view of these verses are welcoming places for queer folk. He argues that the communities that take these verses as only prohibitive of anal sex can be fully affirming of LGBT lives. I find the assumption that religious values that entail restricting sexual acts and pleasure "support inclusion and affirmation of LGBT lives" a pipe dream rather than a current reality. Luckily, that pipe dream is Mr. Michaelson's life's work.
I do not wish to enter an argument on what the original intent or current usage of specific Biblical verses means for religiously and secularly identified members of the LGBT community. That conversation is already robust, and I don't think that's where the problem with Mr. Savage's statements lies or the problem with Mr. Michaelson's response.
Mr. Savage used inflammatory language, as he is wont to do in many circumstances, and shaming tactics to portray the Bible and anti-gay interpretations of it as worthless to the queer community. He also used anti-gay inflammatory language to attack students who left his presentation because of that vulgarity. He later apologized for attacking those students.
In Mr. Michaelson's response, he reacts to Dan Savage "feeding into homophobic rhetoric about gays and religion" and presents a moral equivalency between Dan Savage's understanding of organized religion (or at least organized Christianity) as homophobic with Rick Santorum's moral equivalency between homosexuality and bestiality that set off Dan Savage's "Google Santorum" campaign.
My first issue with this reaction is his use of a moral equivalency between Mr. Savage's suspicion of the motives of organized religious groups and Senator Rick Santorum's comparison of homosexuality to bestiality. In Sen. Santorum's hateful comments, he implies that engaging in sexual relations with people of the same sex is akin to having sexual relations with animals that do not share our language or agency or have the ability to consent. By calling all homosexual sex rape, Sen. Santorum criminalizes all those who have same-sex relationships, even Mr. Michaelson's description of loving, monogamous, same-sex relationships that some religions support.
Mr. Savage's comments about the Bible are based on the lived experience of discrimination and pain inflicted by various organized religious groups on LGBT persons based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Mr. Michaelson does extremely valuable work within religious communities to make them safe and affirming for LGBT persons, but that work would not be necessary if the organized religious world were already a welcoming place for us. And many organized religious communities are far behind Jewish groups on efforts of reconciliation with queer folk. The possibility of friendlier interpretations of Biblical verses exists, but that does not mean it is practiced by most organized religions. I even find my supposedly rabidly liberal welcoming Reform Movement of Judaism alienating at some points. Mr. Michaelson seems to assume that because narrow literal interpretations of Biblical verses concerning sexual activities are possible, they are universally adopted by organized religion. This is false, and as much as I wish all organized religions were queer-inclusive, they are not.
My second and main issue with Mr. Michaelson's critique of Mr. Savage's comments stems from his assumption that because Mr. Savage is a gay icon, he should have to alienate himself from his personal history as a gay man in order to be inclusive of groups that hate him. Systematic homophobia exists in American society, and even the most outspoken, sexually liberated queers have suffered because of it and have internalized it. Homophobia hurts everyone, and queerness does not offer us immunity to it. Dan Savage is not "part of the problem;" he is a product of it.
In the queer activist community, we hold to a myth that we have no shame about being queer and we have moved beyond any homophobia in society. This myth is false and dangerous, and if we restrict speech about queerness to those who are not influenced by homophobic discourse, we must all be silent. That is not a solution I can deal with. When queers are homophobic, we must recognize it as a product of the systematic homophobia in society. And when we are insensitive with our language, we should apologize as Mr. Savage has for the vulgarities he spouted at those who left his speech when he criticized the Bible. Let us stop blaming queer folk for homophobia. That is behavior that the true haters engage in, and Mr. Michaelson has engaged in it by his victim blaming as it relates to Mr. Savage. Blaming Mr. Savage for homophobic remarks that he internalized because of his upbringing in the homophobic atmosphere of the Catholic Church is unproductive. We must call homophobia for what it is whenever people engage in it, especially when we do it through the ways we shape our discourse or through the ways we blame ourselves and the siblings in our struggle against it. Instead of arguing over which queer should have a membership card revoked and be the newly-elected homophobe-in-chief, we should be calling attention to the destructive nature of homophobia everywhere it dwells, including within the queer community. We must acknowledge we have internalized homophobia, even Dan Savage and even Jay Michaelson. And we should work so that we may become the last fossils of that prejudice in society.
And Jay Michaelson, rather than blaming Dan Savage for being a homophobe, should continue working to establish more queer-friendly religious spaces. Then young members of the queer community can determine for themselves that on the issue of the Bible, Dan Savage might not have the whole story.
