Set up the meeting for ...let's say 11pm, Friday, at R Place.

And then videotape it.

Your logic is this: I won't meet with them because I never asked for a meeting when I had an issue. Nobody should talk, or learn, or understand. Everybody just fire away.

Sandy Brown is a great person, and you just smacked him in public.

Geez. Grow up.

WHAT FUCKING ISSUE?!

That is so awesome. Yes, this is a job for the fabulous Cienna Madrid!

It's good to be The King.

Your logic is this: I'm dealing with illogical religious leaders, I don't need logic. Nobody is gonna talk, or learn, or understand.

Gays are great people, and they are tired of being smacked around in public.

Geez. Outgrow religion.

Perfectly done, Dan, and exactly. They're not interested in anything other than a concession or a conversion. No discussion with religious officials is ever objective.

If they were offended, then perhaps they need to think why they *wouldn't* be attractive to the casual visitor from The Stranger, instead of getting up in your grille with this passive-aggressive crap.

Your agenda in clear, the stranger displays it openly. Someone wants to discuss a hit piece you did. Then, all of a sudden, you throw on a journalist uniform.

No, what you are is a insecure loudmouth who excells at discussing the various permutation of "poop play".

Kudos to you. The rest of us in the family appreciate all your hard work at doing such a piss poor job representing us to the strait community.

Stranger: "Sanity"
Pastors: "Gawd"
Stranger: "But... sanity."
Pastors: "But.... gawd."
Stranger: "It's our fucking newspaper... blah blah, sanity."
Pastors: "Harrumph." **scamper off like little girls only without the awesome**

Hey #24, choke on a dick and die. Dan doesn't have to be a "journalist" in your book to be unapologetic. It's a mostly free country, at least until you fundie assholes ruin it.

The church council of greater seattle is hardly a fundy group. Stick to talking about the White stripes latest abortion. At least you won't look as stupid.

But CVC is helpful to them in that it helps fill the pews, so I guess it's worth the discomfort.

You want to be equal, to be embraced by the larger community and have your relationship validated by society.

Yet you do nothing but spit in the eye of those who you want to emulate more than anything else in your life.
Confused, yes.

Oh, and if you want to know, the are many members of the Curch council of greater seattle that are working hard towards the acceptance of gays and lesbians by mainstream society as well as chuches. You just took a big ole' dump in their face for all their efforts.

I am so sick and tired of religious people who are "hurt" and "disappointed" over every little thing. I am no longer willing to be so kind of "religious sensibilities" and prefer to speak my mind. So long as other people feel free to vote on my human and civil rights, declare that I cannot marry the partner of my choice, deny me the same rights and privileges as other American citizens, etc. I have no problem hurting their feelings. Mine are crushed each and every day by the hatred promoted in the name of God. Turnabout is fair play, eh?

Keep it up, Dan. You're my hero!

Oh wait. Never mind. They have plenty of pulpits and there's not shortage of bullies screaming from them.

Fuck 'em.

I have recently read your article "Tolerance Almost Full," regarding the release of my new album. I am disappointed, hurt and angry. Would it be possible to have a meeting with Dan Savage and Sean Nelson so we could discuss this and other issues? My hope is that it would be possible to build a more positive relationship between myself, Hearmusic, Starbucks and The Stranger newspaper, and I believe a meeting could help. It looks to me like we could gather ten or more baristas of the stores you covered and that a meeting might be very helpful to us all.

Thank you for your consideration of this request. I look forward to your response.

maybe dan would be willing to meet for an apology. or for a plan to get churches to support gay rights. maybe. maybe they could just do that sort of thing on thier own.

that said, if you interpret it as Jonathon@34 it comes back to that be careful not to become a monster when fighting them idea. turn about is fair play? i really don't agree... especially when some people who are "innocent" get the turn about on them.

Its really quite sad.

@32,

No, Dan wants equal rights. He's made it clear that he doesn't care if homobigots exist in the world, as long as they mind their own business.

Personally, I found the church series to be lame on a literary/journalistic level. Too many of the entries smacked of "gee, my editor made me go to church and gosh it sucked just like I expected". I would have preferred something more informative and less apathetic. If you don't give a crap about something, why write about it?

That said, Dan's right to smack down the council. It sounds like he was being set up for some sort of intervention. Lame or not, he has a right to publish what he wants to about Seattle's houses of worship.

That's great if the Church Council of Greater Seattle are working hard for the acceptance of gays and lesbians, unfortunately they are a minority within this country's church councils. Acceptance for a lot of these churches means "Hate the sin, not the sinner" which puts religious gays and lesbians back in the closet. The ONLY reason Dan should sit down and have a conversation with these folks is so the rest of the world can see how hypocritical and deluded they are.

ecce: They sent 30 atheists to churches to observe services. They wrote about it, in a mostly objective tone. The officials of said churches were upset that non-loyalists gave an objective assessment of their services. One official seriously thought she and others could coerce Dan into offering a nonsensical apology that wasn't warranted for perceived offenses that weren't 'offenses' at all but an objective look at their practices. Dan called bullshit, and posted the exchange for us to see.

I'm not sure what your beef is, but the sooner you get over it, the more we'll think of you. You're raising hell over hogwash.

Small detail - there is no such thing as the "straight community," no matter how you spell it. There are straight people and mostly straight people. Some of them commune, some don't.

The same can be said of the gays, and the highly vaunted, and entirely fictional, "gay community."

No worries - it took me a while to learn this too. But it really is a helpful lesson.

This wasn't a hit and run piece - it was what it was. If anyone thinking of going to one of these churches decides not to because of a humorous review in the Stranger, they're an idiot. If anyone who attends one of these churches stops going because of a humorous review in the Stranger, they probably don't have any idea what they believe anyway.

There is certainly no point in discussing things with people who cling to dogma in the face of all evidence...like those who proceed from the assumption that "religious folk" all cling to dogma in the face of all evidence.

Never mind that different religious folk might even have different dogmas to which they assign a greater or lesser importance in their own personal spiritual journeys.

Nope. Never mind trying to find common ground. Never mind trying to understand things from somebody else's perspective. Somebody who claimed to be religious said something mean to me once, so that means that everybody who thinks church is a good idea is Teh Evils. Flame away!

Yes, pun intended.

I think Dan's response was spot-on.

The Stranger calls 'em like it sees 'em... warts, worms, and all.

You are forgiven for not knowing who Cienna Madrid is because The Stranger under utilizes her to the point they should be brought up on charges for crimes against humanity. She is probably the best pure writer they have. she is Seattle's Sarah Vowell, but prettier and with a less grating voice.

And to Dan as well. The response was respectful and spot-on, and, frankly, the original piece wasn't that fucking bad to begin with. If I had a dollar every time some group of Christians was "disappointed and hurt" over something so relatively benign...

(also, ditto on Cienna = SV)

they prolly just wanna tell 'em that their houses of worship aren't just there for sunday services, but a lot more (like feeding the hungry, helping the poor, advocating for the marginalized, giving shelter for the homeless). the church council folk aren't into aggressive proselytizing. got that? good.

the real reason dan doesn't want a meeting is because he is just too fucking chickenshit to meet face to face with these pastors. it's one thing to send an email, quite another to defend your position in person. after all, dan went on bill o'reilly and got CREAMED.

sandy, if you're reading this, don't feel bad that dan refused a meeting. his bark is far far worse than his bite.

Ouch. Talk about damning with faint praise...

I grew up among religious conservatives. The reason for the meeting, no matter what the peripheral topics of discussion are, was to try and coerce a public apology for writing the article and some sort of renouncement. They aren't interested in his side of the story, 'discussion' or mediation. They're pissed and they want him to take it back, so they pour on some sugar to get him in the door so they can chisel and hammer away.

Dan grew up in a Catholic househould, so I'm sure he understands how these guys roll.

I would have set up a meeting with them and Mudede, then Slogged the transcript.

I am an atheist who believes MANY christians are hateful bigots but I know how valuable these good people were/are in fighting the bigots on their own playing field.

I am not saying this b/c i think the Stranger should meet with them (that's there decision), I am just saying this b/c the comments on this thread seem to indicate most folks think the Church Council of Greater Seattle is the enemy and I just want to point out that they are not.

That would require people here to put their bigotry behind them, and pull together for the good of the community.

But being ascerbic assholes is much more fun.

They don't know who their friends are and have no clue about their enemies. Truly a great way to win the good fight...

Uh huh, right, that's why you posted your contradictory post with an anonymous sock puppet name, because you're here to tell the truth and make us believe that Sandy's group wasn't trying to be at all adversarial.

Nice try, dude.

(and yeah, Dan nailed it)

PS - I always post anonymously as is my choice.

PPS - I don't know Sandy personally but I did know John Boonstra and that guy worked his ass off for queer rights.

PPPS - I thought the letter seemed sincere and I thought Dan's response also seemed sincere.

PS - I always post anonymously as is my choice.

PPS - I don't know Sandy personally but I did know John Boonstra and that guy worked his ass off for queer rights.

PPPS - I thought the letter seemed sincere and I thought Dan's response also seemed sincere.

Wipe the swear words off your teddy bear and YOU go meet with them, ya crybaby.

I suspect they are trying to let the paper (and Dan, because he's the editor) that not all christians are your enemy.

And they aren't.

I also suspect that when you finally grow the fuck up, you might realize this. With Dan, his income is dependant upon not realizing it.

Here's something hilarious: Today at KUOW a member of one of the liberal, progressive churches--a guy that works at KUOW--let me know how much his congregation loved the package, and the attention. And their write-up--#1 in the package--was one of the snarkier ones. (G-d bless Ari Spool, Jewess.)

But, hey, I've been hearing for the last 15 years about how I've managed to set the gay pride movement back 10, 20, 50 years all by my lonesome, just me, a computer, a column, and a newspaper.

And yet if you read the piece by Matt Foreman, ED of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, in the Queer Issue... you'll learn that we've made remarkable progress despite me, my mouth, my computer, my newspaper, etc., etc. Here's the link:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=247561#h2007

And if me and my mouth were so singularly destructive, EH, do you think Foreman--to say nothing of Bruce Bawer, Andrew Sullivan, Michelle Tea, Edmund White, Andrew Tobias, et all--would write for us when I asked? I think they're all pretty good judges of who is helping and who is harming our Glorious Struggle for Full Equality.

Over and out!

Just a point of clarification.

I do think it might be worthwhile to meet. Maybe you have an outside chance of altering some views for those on the fence. Over the years I've been amazed at the power to change opinions just by normal face to face interaction.

Also you would have the power. It could be on your terms and you could walk at the first sign or disrespect. Then again, part of me loved your FU to the Church Council.

I was raised in a fundamentalist church. I was taught that Catholics could be Christians, but that most really weren't, because they A) weren't Born Again B) weren't serious about Jesus, they were just into "ritual" C) they used liturgy instead of "praying from their hearts" D) they prayed to Mary and the saints instead of God, and E) it was very possible, indeed likely, that one of the Popes would be the Antichrist.

I am not joking.

Some of the churches profiled in the piece have partnered gay pastors or priests. Some organize busloads of parishioners to lobby for gay marriage in Olympia. I realize that identifying which churches are welcoming of various demographics wasn't the point of the "Month of Sundays" piece, and I also think that being offended by the piece is a serious overreaction (I was disappointed that the new church I've been attending wasn't profiled, and pleased that the one I used to attend was.) But I do think that assuming all xtians think the same way is like assuming all lesbians really do show up on the second date with a U-Haul.

and #67 wins.

Right on, Dan Savage. I am enjoying The Stranger more and more each week. "Month of Sundays" was funny and bold and irreverent and important!

Dan and others have immediately assumed that this was going to be an angry confrontation and there's no evidence of that. Why do you put "discuss" is quotes? I personally know many pastors who would want to do exactly that, discuss. Not every church is run by Falwell.

Refusing to listen? Refusing to have a dialogue? I thought you were a better person than that Dan.

When you strike a chord with a review, people will object.

I remember in high school, I got hit pretty hard for writing a very slightly negative review of a play. I tried to explain myself, but got absolutely nowhere.

A few years later, I wrote a slightly negative review of a well-known writer's work for a magazine with a tiny circulation. Said writer called and berated the editor.

Writers have to let go of being worried about peoples' responses.

Now, it would be one thing if the Stranger published lies about churches ("and there was child rape going on on the altar during the service"). If something like that happened, it's a different situation. I don't believe there was any lying going on in any of the reviews.

People were reviewing what they saw and what they heard. If a few local clergy can't put up with that, that's their problem.

And like everyone else, and then what? At the root of it, I guess religion has less to do with "spirituality" and more to do with community building. Which I'm actually cool with, but let us not confuse "self rightous asshole" with being "spiritual". I always got the impression its the feeling of being connected to a higher power, and not forcing your agenda down someone's throat.

But as a born again atheist, I suppose I'll never know.

And seriously, if it wasn't for us straight people making their lives miserable, gay people would have it MADE! Disposable income, better reproductive choices, AND more power to create yourself as someone you are attracted to, all this while not overpopulating the planet. And we straight people have to make you people feel like shit?

And like everyone else, and then what? At the root of it, I guess religion has less to do with "spirituality" and more to do with community building. Which I'm actually cool with, but let us not confuse "self rightous asshole" with being "spiritual". I always got the impression its the feeling of being connected to a higher power, and not forcing your agenda down someone's throat.

But as a born again atheist, I suppose I'll never know.

And seriously, if it wasn't for us straight people making their lives miserable, gay people would have it MADE! Disposable income, better reproductive choices, AND more power to create yourself as someone you are attracted to, all this while not overpopulating the planet. And we straight people have to make you people feel like shit?

With all due respect to the nice people at the Church Council (and I know they are nice): Bullshit.

Dan did the right thing by nipping this ambush in the bud.

You're a bully. Maybe you think it's okay to be a bully because you're GAY and OPPRESSED.

But you're still a bully. And it's still ugly.