November 7, 2014
Savage's Duggar Family Slam Unleashes Anti-Gay Rhetoric in Twitchysphere
EDGE READ TIME: 3 MIN.
How do you go from twitchy to epileptic? Ask Dan Savage.
A post by Dan Savage unleashed a torrent of anti-gay comments this week when the sex columnist and gay activist invited readers of the conservative Twitter aggegate website Twitchy to read his latest column in which he suggests that the Duggar girls of TLC's reality series "19 Kids and Counting," should have sex before marriage.
In Savage's column titled "Should the Duggar Girls #FuckFirst? Yes, they should. Duggar boys, too. And so should you," Savage, playing the dual roles of both sex columnist and gay activist, comes out swinging against the TV family known for the fringe religious beliefs and political campaigning for anti-gay candidates.
Savage starts:
"Full disclosure: I'm a dirty sodomite and no one-NO ONE-should listen to anything I have to say about anything. Ever. I can write whatever I want, of course, because this is a free country. (Maybe a little too free!) But there's one thing I'm not allowed to write about: the Duggars. People like me shouldn't even think thoughts about good people like the Duggars.
Which is funny because the Duggars-children included-think thoughts about people like me."
[..]
"So, yeah, the Duggar family - politically active TV stars with antigay and antichoice agendas - are thinking thoughts about people like me." Savage writes. "And they're not very nice thoughts: They're actively working to harm families like mine. I think that gives me the right to think thoughts about them."
[..]
"To go on television and to appear on magazine covers - to put your family at the center of a reality show-is to invite comment. Real housewives know it when they sign up, top chefs know it when they sign up, and the Duggars knew it when they signed up. And the Duggars aren't just on TV. They're proselytizing on TV... Family planning - access to birth control - and feminism aren't the only things the Duggars would like to see eradicated. Their eldest son, Josh Duggar, works for the Family Research Council (FRC), one of 38 organizations designated as antigay hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. This fall, Jim Bob and Michelle and various little Duggars made appearances at campaign rallies for rabidly antigay, antichoice Republican candidates."
After publishing his column on his website The Stranger, Savage invited users of the Twitter content curation site Twitchy, known for it's radical right wing anti-gay commentary, to weigh in with their opinions on his latest work.
Comments from Twitchy users were characteristically anti-gay.
Buttpirate atheist spreading the Satanic gospel of AIDS (Anally-Inflicted Death Sentence)
Liberals like him are immoral sick pukes.
He should just seek help for being a homosexual. What a disgusting, aberrant, degenerate, unhealthy, absurd, delusion of a lifestyle.
Soooo obsessed with sex it's not even funny. But that's expected from people whose lives revolve around the flesh. I can only take pity. There's a beautiful world around us and all they can do is focus on sex. : /
The impetus behind Savages' most recent slam on the Duggar family was a recent cover of US Weekly featuring recently married Duggar daughters Jill and Jessa discussing their rules for love and sex.
The fact that the Duggars are anathema to Savage is hardly surprising and vice versa. As a sex columnist and gay activist, Savage stands for everything the Duggars are against, and the feeling is mutual.
The famous mega-family is part of the Quiverfull movement, which is largely considered a patriarchal cultish sect of Christianity. Quiverfulls are against pre-marital sex and call for women to be completely subservient to men. The Duggars have used their celebrity to champion anti-gay candidates, and are regulars at rallies and conferences pushing anti-gay and anti-abortion policy.
