“This is not what our organizations expected. In his attempt to denounce bullying, Mr. Savage belittled the faith of others – an action that we do not support. Ridicule of others’ faith has no place in our programs, any more than ridicule of the LGBT community would.”
The sponsors said Savage’s speech fell short of the standards of civil discourse. They also claimed that Savage had apologized for his “inappropriate language.”
On April 29, Savage said his use of the word “pansy-a--sed” was “name-calling” and “wrong,” but he also charged it was insulting to homosexuals for religious conservatives to say “love the sinner, hate the sin.”
He also reaffirmed his description of some biblical passages as “bulls--t” and his rejection of religious views against homosexuality.
Rick Tuttle, a teacher at Sutter Union High School in Southern California, told CNN that Savage’s speech “took a real dark, hostile turn.”
“It became very hostile toward Christianity, to the point that many students did walk out,” he said.
A father of one 17-year-old girl who walked out of the speech, himself a public school teacher, said that teachers have to guard their speech because students are captive audiences.
“If Dan Savage was a teacher, they’d suspend him without pay for this behavior,” he told the family advocacy organization CitizenLink.
“How many of the kids who didn’t walk out felt backed into a corner? To me, that’s bullying behavior. It has all the symptoms, as far as I’m concerned.”
Savage is the founder of the “It Gets Better” project which aims to help homosexual and transgendered youth against bullying. He has blamed Christian morality for causing teen suicide.
Many members of the Obama administration, including President Obama himself, made videos for Savage’s project.
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Savage is also the author of a graphic sex advice column and led a “Google bomb” campaign to link former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum’s last name to an obscene phrase.