Dan Savage writes this totally INAPPROPRIATE sex-advice column in Seattle. He also blogs daily for his paper, The Stranger.
And here is what he has to say (yesterday) and (today):
Tonight's 30 Days
posted by on June 24 at 3:20 PM
The third season of Morgan Spurlock's FX series 30 Days kicks off continues tonight with Spurlock dropping an opponent of gay adoption into a household headed by a same-sex couple in Michigan.
I happen to know the gay couple featured, Tom and Dennis Patrick, and their four boys. Every summer my family attends Gay Family Week in Saugatuck (not just me and the boyfriend and the kid, but my whole extended family), as do the Patricks. Tom and Dennis are great, mellow, thoughtful guys who've adopted four boys out of foster care. The state of Michigan, which should be pinning a medal on these guys, has instead threatened to take away their health-care benefits in the wake of an anti-gay marriage amendment to Michigan's state constitution. But that's not the point of this post...
Yesterday GLAAD—the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation—sent out a mass email urging "community members" to contact FX Networks to protest statements made by an anti-gay activist Spurlock interviews during the show. GLAAD, which once gave an award to 30 Days, says...
Regrettably, the episode also features a defamatory statement by Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, an anti-gay activist organization, who claims: "Homosexuality is associated with higher rates of sexual promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence, and child sexual abuse, and those are all reasons for us to be concerned about placing children into that kind of setting." While there is no credible scientific research that backs Sprigg’s claim—and much that disputes it—the episode presents his assertion as if it were fact and offers no credible social science experts or child health authorities to challenge Sprigg’s assertion. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the Child Welfare League of America, and many other child health and social services authorities who support parenting by qualified lesbian and gay parents dispute Sprigg’s claim.
GLAAD asked FX Networks last week to either edit Sprigg's comments out of the show or bring in one of those "credible social science" experts to respond to Sprigg's comments. FX refused.
I just watched the episode on a preview copy that FX overnighted to me—in hopes, no doubt, that I would disagree with GLAAD and defend FX and Spurlock's decision to air the show as-is.
Uh... sorry, FX, sorry, Morgan, but GLAAD is 100% right.
Sprigg's comments come early in the program and linger like mustard gas over every scene that comes after. A casual viewer may watch Tom and Dennis with their kids and think, "Okay, these guys are decent parents, and maybe their boys are going to be fine... but other kids adopted by other gays might not be so lucky. Other kids might wind up adopted by those gays that abuse kids, and rape them, and worse."
And GLAAD didn't even mention the interview that comes immediately after Sprigg's: Right after handing the mic to Sprigg Spurlock talks to Dawn Stefanowicz, a woman that wrote a book about living with a gay parent—her biological father—after he came out of the closet in the 1970s. This woman's father talked to her about bathhouse sex "at the kitchen table," and dragged her to a "downtown sex shop." She holds her father up—with Spurlock's help, and tinkly so-sad music playing in the background—not as an example of a lousy parent, gay or straight, but as an example of why no gay people should be allowed to parent. "Based on your personal experience do you believe children are at risk if they’re raised in homosexual households?" Spurlock asks this woman. "Children need a married mother and father," she replies. "I know that there are so many situations that are not ideal, but we still need to hold to an ideal that is best for children."
And, as with the interview with Sprigg, Spurlock doesn't challenge this woman's assertions or bring in anyone to address them. Instead Spurlock moves on to this: Hey, you can make piles of money providing sperm to lesbians that want to be moms—you know, those non-ideal parents that aren't best for children!
So basically Spurlock didn't just talk to Sprigg, and let him lie and lie and lie some more, he brought in someone to second Sprigg—someone using right-wing religious code—and allows her to assert that it would be better for Tom and Dennis's kids if they hadn't been adopted at all. And, again, the casual viewer is left to conclude that it would probably be for the best if Tom and Dennis hadn't been able to adopt those boys because, hey, God only knows what Tom and Dennis are talking about at the kitchen table when there aren't any cameras (or clueless Mormon bigots) in the house.
GLAAD wants you to contact the folks listed below to complain about Sprigg and Spurlock and 30 Days—and so do I.
20th Century Fox Television, Inc. Jeffrey Glaser Senior Vice President, Current Programming (310) 369-0211 jeffrey.glaser@fox.comFX Networks:
Nick Grad
Executive Vice President of Original Programming
(310) 369-0949
ngrad@fxnetworks.comChuck Saftler
Executive Vice President of Programming
(310) 369-0949
csaftler@fxnetworks.comScott Seomin
Vice President of Public Relations
(310) 369-0938
scott.seomin@fxnetwork.com
30 Days Reactions From Around the Gay Interwebs
posted by on June 25 at 11:25 AM
It looks like GLAAD and I weren't the only folks offended by this interview night's 30 Days:
FX says gays abuse kids, are mentally illYep. The FX network thought it would be cute, or funny, or something to put on TV an anti-gay bigot and let him spout all the tired old lies from decades ago—and THEN, not have anyone there to say "uh, those are all lies." So, FX's viewers were left with the message that gays abuse kids, are mentally ill, beat their partners, and more. Lovely. Maybe FX can get Heinz as a sponsor.... This is outrageous. It's bad enough for FX to let these bigots broadcast their tired old libel against gays, but then to not have someone there to point out that the "facts" are actually lies. Incredible.
The episode also airs a disgusting statement from Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council.... I've posted about Sprigg before. You may remember that back in March, Sprigg talked about immigration to the Medill Reports, saying, "I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society."
So first, just as we had been warned, they introduce Peter Sprigg and let him present his baseless "facts" in an unchallenged fashion. Even though the episode featured several pro-gay speakers, it is 100% irresponsible to let Sprigg, sitting in the "expert" chair, rail off this list of supposed gay ills as if they are the gospel. That simply would not be accepted with any other group of people! And it's unfair to just trust that the American public is going to realize that Sprigg's words are the product of his own one-sided views, and not credible information.But that being said, this portion of the program gets almost worse after the Sprigg clip, when the show proceeds to present the conversation with Dawn Stefanowicz in a way that makes it sound as if she is merely a child of gay parents who has written a book about her experiences. Only problem with that? Dawn is not just someone who they found through an advertisement of casting call. Dawn is an anti-gay activist who has taken a situation that is unique to herself, filtered that through a faith in Jesus, and began a new career of using her own past paint to fight against equal rights for gays and lesbians (attracting the attention of rabidly anti-gay extremists like the American Family Association in the process). She is telling the story of her family, from only her own personal perspective, even admitting that "it was not until [her] father, his sexual partners and [her] mother had died, was [she] free to speak publicly about [her] experiences." And she's taking that one-sided story, with nobody alive to challenge it, and sweepingly misapplying it to gay parenting as a whole. It's patently unfair, both Dawn's misuse of personal trauma, and her inclusion on this program in this casual, unfleshed out way!
Complaints should be directed to...
20th Century Fox Television, Inc. Jeffrey Glaser Senior Vice President, Current Programming (310) 369-0211 jeffrey.glaser@fox.comFX Networks:
Nick Grad
Executive Vice President of Original Programming
(310) 369-0949
ngrad@fxnetworks.comChuck Saftler
Executive Vice President of Programming
(310) 369-0949
csaftler@fxnetworks.comScott Seomin
Vice President of Public Relations
(310) 369-0938
scott.seomin@fxnetwork.com
Video via JoeMyGod.
3 comments:
It's a sticky issue, for sure. I don't have a problem with gay or lesbian couples having the same legal rights as married couples, and I definitely don't have a problem with them adopting. I don't particularly think they should call gay/lesbian unions "marriage" but that's splitting hairs in a secular culture. Marriage is held in such low regard (look at divorce rates, hello world) that it doesn't much matter nowadays anyways. I think if they start to try to force churches and pastors who don't agree or support gay marriage into conducting their wedding ceremonies, that will/should be a problem. People are free to believe whatever they want, but if they try to force me to follow their beliefs or actively participate in their belief structure, that's where I have a big problem.
Bias: Pro equal rights for all. If only the hets would have to come begging to me for their rights. I would gladly give them, but they would have a different perspective.
It never occurs to straight people that they aren't doing such a hot job of marriage or child-rearing either. In the quote you selected below, the word QUALIFIED got my goat. That is the whole point about parenting, anyone gets to do it, and there are no qualifications.
The thing that makes parenting unique for gays (who haven't already had children in a straight marriage) is that parenting is a Choice, an Active Choice, an Informed Choice, a Freely-Made Choice. A modicum of thought has been put into it.
"Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the Child Welfare League of America, and many other child health and social services authorities who support parenting by [[qualified]] lesbian and gay parents dispute Sprigg's claim."
Of course, in any debate like this, generalisations have to be made... but they are made by both sides, thank goodness.
But the thing that straights really want to say, and let's use Savage's bluntness...
Straights are afraid that paedophilic perverts will get together and raise a sex slave child. And worse, if they give the gays the right to do this, what will happen when the polyamorous come knocking.
Guess what. There are straight doing this as we speak. Straight people, here in South Africa, chaining their children up in basements until they are discovered when their children are 26 years old.
And, this is wrong in the gay or straight world. These people are criminals and should be put behind bars. But if we put straights away for pegging, sodomy, necrophilia, etc., there wouldn't be many around. Why focus on homophilia? Can necrophiliacs marry, why yes! Can peggers marry, why yes!
I can imagine, that thanks to the repressive society we live in, there are more gays and straights living sweetly quiet lives in the suburbs than many people can imagine. It's the loud people that get our focus, but they are few. But their fewness is no reason to pick on them. Wouldn't you be ashamed picking on an easy target?
Post a Comment