Ooookay will whoever knows some code around Slog add a feature to: 1) filter out all IGB posts and 2) filter out all Dan Savage posts.

This is getting ridiculous.

@1: Why don't you use an RSS reader that lets you only open the articles you're interested in. I, personally, loved this post and am glad to have read it.

If her son turns out to be gay, she'll probably blame it on the traumatizing experience of seeing the IGB commercial when he was 9.

Someone over on Joe's blog made a comment that said something like: "Anyone who thinks being gay is only about sex also thinks our hearts don't break".

@2: DADT isn't completely dead yet.

I thought gay people were the only people having sex these days. Married people just fight and and do funnyu things in harmless romantic comedies.

@1- why do you read SLOG anyway? you suck, go away

But Swearengen you can do that all by yourself! You know. Just don't read them. See how easy?

On topic:
Most recently I saw the ad during the season finale of Survivor. Woot! Way to reach millions of people!
And p.s. Every time I see it? I cry.

@1, Not that I want to help a douche like yourself but this should take care of your childish needs:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4859…

Well, Dan, this is the kind of person that raises bullies. So if the child is also LGBT his classmates are probably in for a cruel bit of treatment until he gets old enough to wake up or finds someone to lift his luggage.

Has this woman ever heard of a mute button? Sorry the TV won't do your parenting for you, Nance.

@9 That's the first time I saw it on tv. Of course I've seen it online dozens of times, but we don't usually watch the commercials. My partner was fast forwarding and I made her stop and rewind so we could watch it.

It's also important to point out, I think, that the IGB campaign can help this twat's son even if he's straiggt. Yes, gay kids often have a more difficult time of it, and yes, the primary goal is to help them out. But gay kids are bullied too. And no matter this kid's current or future sexuality, I'm willing to bet that with a mother like that he's already experiencing bullying at home, if not in school.

So, anonymous kid: it will get better, if you let it. You don't have to grow up to be filled with hate like your parents. And no matter your sexuality, life improves after high school. That's pretty much a given.

Damn typo you don't see until the last minute and then can't fix because you already hit send...

I agree with all of it except for the part where you hope Nancy's son is gay. I don't. Not that I don't appreciate the tremendous irony that would be involved, but I wouldn't wish that kind of a parent on a gay child. Can you imagine how damaging it would be for you to not only have a parent who disapproves of who you are, but whose entire life is dedicated to the denigration and destruction of people like you?
I don't think having Nancy for a parent is healthy for any child and I'm glad her son could see the ad, but I also hope he's straight and can hopefully escape his family mindset with his psyche intact.

Ooookay will whoever knows some code around Slog add a feature to filter out all Swearengen posts?

This is getting ridiculous.

I saw that commercial last night, too. Was doing fine until the closeup on the comment about how your video saved the person's life. That stupid swelling music just designed to strangle the heartstrings...

Now I'm out of tissues.

Why does she even think kids know what the sex itself IS? I've seen plenty of bullying where "fag", "sissy" and "queer" were thrown around about kids who knew only that the words were hurtful, not that they involved buttsecks or whatever. They even get thrown at kids who *aren't* LGBT This line of argument carries no weight whatsoever.

@16 - Dan never says he hopes Nance's son is gay. He just says that IGB will give him the HOPE he needs IF he is. Please read the blog post before commenting.

PS American Idol features gay and closeted gay people all the time.

This is indeed a reason to smile! What more could a parent want, but have their children grow up to be compassionate adults who live with integrity. That's my hope, anyway.

Ps. The thing you're looking to preserve is innocence, Nance. Ignorance is the wrong "I" word. Critical thinking preserves innocence, it's what gives your child the freedom to say no to peer pressure and adults who haven't had their credentials examined (or criminal background checks). Parents want their children to listen to their guts, don't they?

@17 Ricardo. Magically enough, the same guy makes the exact thing you are looking for:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4858…

Its wonderful to be able to peruse SLOG and never have to see Will in Seattle, Seattleblues and the other inane trolls who post here.

Nice takedown, Dan. When I was in fourth grade, I had no clue what homosexuality was. But I sure knew that "faggot" was a terrible insult.

@1, if you really hate Dan Savage so much, why the hell are you here? Case in point: I really Hate Matt Drudge. Consequently, I never read his blog. Problem solved.

I love how she gets away with not actually saying that her son was in fact watching last night.

@20 I did indeed read the post:

. So if Nance's son is gay—and here's hoping—and finds his way to the "It Gets Better" website,..

Please note the two "ands". As written Dan is hoping Nance's son is gay and then continuing on with the possibility that he find his way to the It Gets Better website. So I disagree that I'm the one that needs to carefully read the post.

I will admit that I decided that it was "Nancy's" son and not "Nance's" son for no apparent reason though.

Lynx, I agree with you. I don't hope anyone's son or daughter turns out to be gay. I hope they turn out to be exactly who they are supposed to be. In this case, I hope Nance's son turns out to be free from the encumberance of his mother's bigotry, whatever his sexuality.

@22, is there anything like that for Chrome? That's what I've been using lately, and I would love to not see those trolls.

When you get right down to it, It's the same argument that those idiot women in that tacky subdivision in Texas have wtih the David statue in their neighbor's front yard. Just because they have confusion between sex versus emotion versus biology versus age-appropriate discussions, and are looking for their 15 minutes of public outrage, why should that be the greater society's problem?

@22: Oh. Oh Akbar. I could kiss you!

Actually, one could perhaps make a case that the most disturbing sex-oriented programming to watch is coverage of the Senior PGA Tour. Between all the new fathers and the commercials (Mr Dole's most lasting contribution to society), anyone inclined to squick might well think Viagra to be the main staple in the over-50 diet.

@27 just to be absolutely clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with Nance's kid one way or the other. It's Nance that has the fucking problem. I am however saying that even as I wouldn't wish a mother like that on any child, I would wish her even less on a gay child. Hoping that her son is gay, because you understandably dislike her and wish her discomfort, is also to hope that the genetic-hormonal cards her son was given turned out to be those that were to cause him the most suffering. Whatever he is, he is and I wish him a full bigotry-free life, but I feel very sorry for the gay children of anti-gay bigots.

Yes, she probably is raising her child in the equivalent of a cultural Skinner Box (reality-denying people have to come from somewhere). I, too, have never understood why discussing the existence/treatment of gay people should necessitate discussing the mechanics of gay sex any more than discussing the existence/treatment of straight people necessitates discussing the mechanics of straight sex. (I think this is probably because it obviously doesn't, it's just an ill-conceived but surprisingly persistent rhetorical device designed to promote/rationalize homophobia.) I find it telling that so many more 'Conservatives" than 'Liberals' feel the need to 'protect' children from information: if knowing more about a topic (sexuality, reproductive health and safety, religion, etc.) is likely to cause someone to question your position, it might be time to re-evaluate your position and examine why, exactly, that information isn't also causing you to question the position. Facts do indeed have a known Liberal bias [thanks due to The Rev. Sir Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A.] (which is why legitimate news organizations do actually have a Liberal bias e.g. a bias for demonstrable and sourced factual information), necessitating the discursive construction of an alternate reality with alternate facts in order to validate the Neo-Con project.

It's great to know that the Google ad campaign is having the exact intended effect (in the eyes of IGBP; I'm not sure how effective it is at selling Chrome or the Google platform, though Google is enough of an outlier in corporate behavior that it may actually be the case that their primary goal is to publicize IGBP and the Google ad content is just there to justify the campaign as a legitimate endeavor in the interests of stockholders' bottom lines).

@1: The author is listed right there under the title; just skip Dan's posts. I assume you can read, else surfing Slog wouldn't make much sense. It's not like someone's sitting with you at the computer, forcing you to read the entirety of every post to Slog, is it? If it is, make some sort of trollish comment in response and use the substitution code A=B, B=C, C=D, ... Z=A and 0=1, 1=2, 2=3, ... 9=0 to give us your location so we can send help!

This woman won't thank you for making her child happier. Hate is among her family values, happiness is less important than conformity.

I totally squealed when I saw the add during Saturday Night Live. My teenage life would have been so much better if I only knew that there were lots of other gay people out there, doing great things and living fabulous lives.

@28, I believe the support for Chrome is not the best (I had to switch back to FF for SLOG because of this lack) I believe Chrome does things differently so he can't make a filter for it.

@30, thank you. I fully accept kisses as currency.

@36, this is exactly why the bigots hate IGB and it is why I celebrate it. It undermines and subverts the authority of parents to teach kids that homosexuality is wrong. That authority should be undermined at every turn. IGB can reach kids and parents are powerless to stop it. If IGB helps to change some parents that is all well and good, but what is more important is that if a gay or lesbian child has hostile parents the kids can get validation that it is okay to be gay.

This is wonderful!

@ 22 Thanks, but I was just being sarcastic. I don't always read the trolls' posts, but I sometimes do for entertainment purposes. Will in Seattle is mostly inoffensive, but the period troll, pugilist puck and Mike Leung can be unintentionally hilarious at times. It's true that by now I'm bored with SB's constant contradictions and avoiding of the questions his posts raise, but then I do what they all should do when they don't like a person's POV: I don't read it.

"Talking about gay people = talking about buttfucking"

Thank you, thank you. Most of the kids most at risk (and most of the kids who are bullying them) have never had any kind of sex at all yet.

@40, the joy of this filter is you can set them to default be hidden (just like the majority of worthless anon commenters) and then view them if you choose. Being able to read any post about the tunnel or marijuana and not automatically be forced to see Will in Seattles continued ignorance is a blessing.

Once you decide that a certain type of behaviour will land your child in a lake of fire forever, simple parental love requires that you be in favour of anything that might reduce the chance of that behaviour---bullying, 'reparative' therapy, unelective surgery....

Of course this is monstrous, and of course it makes no sense at all for a Calvinist, as most AFA types are, but it's an example of the power of really the worst idea in human theology. Eternal Damnation as an avoidable possibility practically demands that good people do horrible things if they think that The Worst Thing would be any less likely thereby.

@ 42 If I cared about those issues, I'd probably agree with you, but I don't live in the US.

And besides, I wouldn't actually make an effort (like changing a setting) to read the trolls, know what I mean?

@ 46 Please do tell how you've come to those precise conclusions about me?

@25 -- You're absolutely right and I'm wrong. Sorry! (Here's hoping you'll forgive me? =P)

@ 49 - But you don't answer why that makes me "inarticulate", "uneducated", "inferior in just about every sense of the word", or "useless".

Still waiting for a valid answer, but please take this into account: there's more to a person's life than their posts on Slog. (Well, maybe not in your case...)

@47: I see what you mean, Ricardo. Unintentionally hilarious indeed.

(Go on, Puck, call me fat and bald again. That was so funny the first time!)

@ 53 Definitely not if it was written by you, Humpty Dumpty!!!

Valid, as defined by Webster:
a : well-grounded or justifiable : being at once relevant and meaningful b : logically correct

As defined by Cambridge American English:
based on truth or reason; able to be accepted

@ 53 - Oh, and speaking of arguments, when the only thing you can come up with to silence an out gay man is calling him a "gayfag", what does that say about you?

@56: Well, he seems to think that calling someone "a shapeless white male pushing forty" is hilarious, so I wouldn't go looking for too much in the way of actually useful content from anything he posts. He's slightly more amusing than the average troll, but that's about it.

@ 57/58 - Thanks for proving my point with every post you write. You are indeed hilarious.

It's already been established that I'm elderly, but how old are you exactly, 12? 14? (And we'll want a birth certificate to prove it, too!)

@48, no problem. We've all goofed on a reading some time or another. We can be thankful that no matter how silly we are sometimes, we'll never be as dumb as Penny Nance (barring head injuries).

It's spelled "dementia", and no, I don't suffer from it: being a queen, I feel entitled to use the royal "we" anytime I like.

You do realize that with this, you've unknowingly demonstrated that all your arrogant pontificating on language is just as empty as your brains, right?

But you still don't provide an answer to the question... You must be ashamed, then.

@ 65 - Only very, very immature people think that making fun of the aids crisis is in any way acceptable as an argument. Or very, very dumb ones.

For my part, I'd say both.

I rest my case. Had enough of a laugh for today.

Straights need to know it gets better too; some of us were also raised by hateful shits--Hi, Mom!--and need to hear that hateful shittery need not be our destiny.

Confidential to the kid: You can--and should--decide to be decent even if you're straight. It's okay to find Mom's behavior disgraceful, it's okay for you to decide to be different. I did, and I'm a far better man for it.

The really scary subversive message in this ad [for fundies] is that "you are fine just the way you are". Kids (gay or straight) who don't internalize deep existential shame will grow up immune to their control.

@53: A master is out.

Troll here provides another datapoint for the study that found that a lot of people in the bottom quarter of intelligence mistakenly believe they are in the top quarter.

Nance writes, "Bullying is wrong. It is wrong for any reason." If she does, in fact, think bullying is wrong for any reason, then she should _support_ an ad condemning the bullying of GLBT people. I challenge her to come up with a better ad that keeps the anti-bullying message and acknowledges GLBT people.

Beautifully written, perfectly true.

Again, St. Savage, thank you for being such a diligent guardian angel.

( ( ( D A N ) ) )

I think it's telling that rightwing Christianist bigots are adamant that any talk about the existence of GLBT people is really only talking about "deviant" sex. I have several thoughts about this phenomenon:
1) I suspect that's how it was with people who opposed interracial marriage 40 years ago. When you read (and read between the lines of) primary sources of anti-miscegenation literature, it's very straightforward about keeping black men and white women from fucking. Which, if you believe the old white dude writing it, is all that black men and white women want to do.
2) Insomniacs think about sleep more than people who get 8 hours every night. Anorexics think about cheeseburgers more than the guy who eats 2 a day. So when do you think was the last time that Ms. Nance had an orgasm? I would feel sorry for this woman, if she wasn't taking every step she could to prevent Dan from marrying his husband and me from my getting my birth control.
3) How on earth does Concerned Women for America think that they can prevent people from having sex? If our species didn't want to do pleasurable, unprintable things to the people we love as a matter of course, we would have died out a long time ago. Trying to prevent dirty, godless, exhilarating sex is like screaming at the sea, it won't stop the tides.
4) I can't watch that commercial without tearing up a bit. Google did a brave thing when it made and then paid to run that commercial during the most widely watched television program in America.

Hey Penny, want to reduce the amount of gay-topic media coverage so that your child doesn't ask you uncomfortable questions? Then give us our equality, and we'll return to living our lives instead of making a big stink about being second-class citizens! Until then, you're in for a fight that is bound to attract media coverage that your child will undoubtably see.

Watching American Idol never brought up the issue of homosexuality before? Guess she missed the whole Adam Lambert season.

Penny, just flip the channel to Fox News so that you can continue to pretend that Murdoch really cares about your values.

Folks, are we not missing the irony in this comment: "the adult world isn't entirely populated by hateful shits like his mother".
For someone who preaches tolerance, Dan really is showing himself to be equally bigoted.

Definition of 'bigot' from dictionary.com:
a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.

And from the Cambridge dictionary:
a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs and who thinks that anyone who does not have the same beliefs is wrong

I'm by no means defending Penny Nance (I've never heard of her), but the core of this discussion is conflicting worldviews - those who believe that homosexuality is acceptable and those who don't. Everything else is fallout from that.

It's quite sad that I'm reading a lot of intolerant statements here from those who probably pride themselves on being more open minded than those 'evil' fundamentalist Christians.

Folks, are we not missing the irony in this comment: "the adult world isn't entirely populated by hateful shits like his mother".
For someone who preaches tolerance, Dan really is showing himself to be equally bigoted.

Definition of 'bigot' from dictionary.com:
a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.

And from the Cambridge dictionary:
a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs and who thinks that anyone who does not have the same beliefs is wrong

I'm by no means defending Penny Nance (I've never heard of her), but the core of this discussion is conflicting worldviews - those who believe that homosexuality is acceptable and those who don't. Everything else is fallout from that.

It's quite sad that I'm reading a lot of intolerant statements here from those who probably pride themselves on being more open minded than those 'evil' fundamentalist Christians.

Sorry for the double post.

Sorry for the double post.