Not the Real World

Via Towleroad, on the Dan Savage-Brian Brown dinner that was moderated by a reporter from the New York Times at Dan's house - emphasis mine:

After the dinner was over and the wine had worn off, Oppenheimer asked the participants, including Savage's spouse Terry Miller, about their shared experience. It seems no one truly enjoyed themselves, and Savage wishes he had held the event on neutral ground.

Mr. Miller pronounced the entire night a waste of time. “Brian’s heartless readings of the Bible, then his turns to ‘natural law’ when the Bible fails, don’t hide his bigotry and cruelty,” Mr. Miller wrote in an e-mail. “In the end, that’s what he is. Cruel.”

I spoke with Mr. Brown by phone, and he seemed to agree that the setting had made little difference. “There’s this myth that folks like me, we don’t know any gay people, and if we just met them, we would change our views,” he said. “But the notion that if you have us into your house, that all that faith and reason that we have on our side, we will chuck it out and change our views — that’s not the real world.”

As for Mr. Savage, he felt that being on his home turf had actually worked against him. “Playing host put me in this position of treating Brian Brown like a guest,” he said. “It was better in theory than in practice — it put me at a disadvantage during the debate, as the undertow of playing host resulted in my being more solicitous and considerate than I should’ve been. If I had it to do over again, I think I’d go with a hall.”

Brown is exactly right on the one point: the die-hard bigots, and they are legion, will never, ever change their minds about the gay. Not even if they live next door, not even if they are blood kin to you. That's not the real world - and I know, because I have lived it, and I've told you my stories here on the Blue Truck before.

Here's the complete video of the dinner debate. I can't stand to watch the whole thing, had to stop after a couple minutes of Brown's filthy, hateful talk. You might as well expect a confirmed Nazi to embrace the idea that Jews are human beings.  But if you can stomach the evil, here you go.



PS - You damn well better get your ass to the polls this November and vote Democratic. The fascists will certainly be casting their ballots en masse. Don't think what's happening in Russia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe can't happen here - you'd be surprised how very, very quickly your gay ass can be eliminated.