And that really captures the difference for the bullied straight kid versus the bullied gay kid, is that the bullied straight kid goes home to a shoulder to cry on and support and can talk freely about his experience at school and why he's being bullied. [...] And I couldn't go home and open up to my parents.
Dan SavageReally, when it comes to gay rights, there's two wars going on. The first war is political. But the culture war is over.
Dan SavageThe successes of the LGBT civil rights movement and the more prominent role openly gay people are playing in the public eye has actually turned up the temperature in middle schools and high schools for queer kids.
Dan SavageMy dad was a homicide cop in the gay neighborhood in the city when gay neighborhoods were desperate, depressing, sad places run by the mob. The only gay people he'd met when I came out to him were corpses.
Dan SavageI'm one of those gay people who's constantly reminded of how fortunate I am to live now and not to be Ennis and Jack [from Brokeback Mountain] or whatever - not that I'd mind being Ennis for half an hour. But it's been so much worse recently. It still is terrible. In Iran, they're hanging gay teenagers. I'm grateful for how far the United States, even with its crazy Christians, has come on a lot of issues. And the fact that I get called a faggot occasionally by a crack addict, while annoying, certainly isn't a lobotomy and prison.
Dan Savage