Tag: Dan Savage

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ABC Picks Up New Dan Savage Comedy The Real O’Neals

ABC has announced the decision to pick up new comedy, The Real O’Neals, executive produced by Dan Savage.

From Deadline:

The O’Neals, about a family in the aftermath of a son comes out, had been an internal ABC favorite. Its fate was put into question when religious and conservative organizations started a campaign against the project over the involvement of outspoken gay activist Savage.

The comedy was originally going to be based on his life growing up but that changed during the development of the pilot, with the story evolving in a different direction. The O’Neals marks the return of Raising Hope‘s Martha Plimpton with another comedy starring role.

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Dan Savage Ponders Rick Santorum’s “Imaginary, Hypothetical Gay Friends”

Last night on ALL IN with Chris Hayes, Dan Savage discussed the 2016 GOP contenders contention that they have “gay friends,” and whether or not they would attend their weddings.

Via Raw Story:

“When the anti-gay bigots like Rick Santorum are challenged on their anti-gay bigotry, or [Ted] Cruz or [Mike] Huckabee, they always point to their imaginary hypothetical gay friends who might apparently invite them to a gay wedding,” Savage told MSNBC host Chris Hayes. “In Walker’s case it was his own sister, and that’s what’s so interesting about it.”

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ABC Greenlights Sitcom Based On The Early Life Of Dan Savage

ABC has green-lit a new sitcom based on the early life of Dan Savage (It Gets Better Project, Savage Love):

The untitled Savage comedy is a single-camera semi-autobiographical entry based on the LGBT activist/boundary-pushing columnist’s life. It centers on a picture-perfect family that is turned upside down when the youngest son comes out of the closet. What seems like the end of their idyllic life turns out to be the beginning of a bright new chapter when everyone stops pretending to be perfect and actually starts being real.

Savage is listed as one of the producers on the project.

(via Hollywood Reporter)

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Dan Savage On The Death Of Transgender Teen Leelah Alcorn

In the aftermath of Ohio transgender teen Leelah Alcorn’s suicide, the LGBT community has rallied in her memory.

And none more fervently than Dan Savage, who calls for criminal charges to be brought against the teen’s parents:

Speaking to CNN, Leelah’s mother Carla Alcorn said, “We told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no matter what. I loved my son. People need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy.”

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Truth Of The Day: Dan Savage

“Look at Marcus Bachmann, Michele Bachmann’s husband. Anybody who has gaydar—anybody who has eyes—looks at him and sees a tormented closet case who has externalized his internal conflict and is abusing other people, doing his reparative-therapy bullshit. It’s so sad and pathetic.

“A lot of the self-destructive behaviors gay people are prone to drifting into are directed inward, and then you have these shitbags like Marcus Bachmann for whom it’s all directed outward.

“Marcus Bachmann is the photo negative of the guy on the last bar stool in the gay bar, drinking and smoking himself to death, except instead of destroying himself, he’s destroying other vulnerable queer people in an effort to destroy the queer inside himself.”

– Savage Love columnist Dan Savage speaking to Playboy

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Dan Savage talks the portrayal of gays in the media with Larry King

Dan Savage chats on Ora.tv’s PoliticKING with Larry King regarding the progress made in terms of how the LGBT community is portrayed in the media.

KING: It’s hard, you can’t speak for the whole gay community. Do you think they’re portrayed well in the media?

SAVAGE: You know, I used to debate this with my friends in the ‘90s when Will and Grace—a sitcom about a gay man and a straight woman who are friends—was on TV. And my gay friends would complain that it wasn’t a very realistic portrayal of gay people and I would point out that Friends—which was another hit sitcom on television at the same time—was not a really realistic portrayal of straight people.

We shouldn’t look to any one thing, one image on television as definitive or debated as if it’s the only image we’ve ever seen on television. We used to have to have those sorts of debates.

Back in the day, Billy Crystal on Soap was the only gay character on TV, so it was very fraught how he was portrayed. And he was portrayed very badly in the end. He ended up not being gay, as if gay was a choice that he could walk away from.

But now with Michael Sam, with openly gay NBA basketball players, Jim Collins, with Mitch and Cam, with all of the wonderful queens on RuPaul’s Drag Race, and media figures like Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper, there’s this multiplicity of portraits of LGBT people in the media and on television in fictional and in reality.

And I think any individual one case is less important. It’s just part of a mosaic now and I think that’s a wonderful example of progress.

Watch the entire interview tonight, June 5, 2014 at 10 p.m. on Ora.tv.

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Dan Savage has advice for anti-gay bakers and florists

“Here’s a suggestion for all the hatey, butt-sore, anti-gay bakers in Arizona: start an organization—The Arizona Association of Homophobic Bakers—and publicly identify yourselves as homophobic bakers. Put up a website with a list of bakeries that don’t want to do business with LGBT people. Put signs in your windows that clearly state that gay and lesbian customers are not welcome and will be turned away.

“As Anderson Cooper pointed out earlier this week, gays and lesbians are not covered by existing anti-discrimination law in Arizona. So it’s perfectly legal right now for bakers—and florists and caterers and photographers—to discriminate against LGBT customers. Discriminating against LGBT people was legal in Arizona before Jan Brewer vetoed the turn-away-the-gays bill, and it remains legal after her veto. So homophobic bakers who identify themselves as haters and bigots run no legal risk. They can’t be sued by the individual gay people they discriminate against and the authorities can’t fine ’em or shut ’em down.

“Don’t want gay customers? Great. Let us know who you are. Put up a list online, hang signs in your windows, and we will take our business elsewhere.”

– Dan Savage writing for The Stranger

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Dan Savage goes ballistic talking Liz Cheney and Catholic priests on Bill Maher

Dan Savage sat down with Bill Maher to talk about “buttloads” of gay stuff, including religious officials, like a priest, who testified in Hawaii that gay marriage will harm children.

Replies Savage: “He’s confusing children who were raised by gay parents with children who were raped by Catholic priests.”

Savage also lays in to Mary Cheney and Heather Poe for their hypocrisy on the marriage equality beef between them and Cheney sister Liz:

While Liz Cheney faces an uphill climb in her bid for a senatorial seat in Wyoming, Savage said, Mary Cheney still had a history of supporting not just her father during his tenure as vice president, but 2012 Republican presidential Mitt Romney. Savage repeatedly mentioned that Mary Cheney both voted for Romney and donated $2,500 to his campaign. “Unlike her sister, Liz, who’s saying ‘it’s a state issue,’ Romney wanted to rewrite the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage in every state, even overturning gay marriages in states where it had already been legalized,” Savage said. “Romney was 1,000 times worse than Liz, and Mary wrote that fucker a check.”

The discussion wraps up with chatting on Alec Baldwin – famed liberal – who reverts to childhood taunts (“cocksucking faggot”) when angry.

Great clip.

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Dan Savage on Bill Maher’s REAL TIME

Dan Savage talks with Bill Maher about his reactions to this year’s monumental Supreme Court rulings on gay marriage, the most laugh-out-loud awful anti-gay arguments, and one of his favorite ways to troll Christian conservatives. He also explained to Maher how gay male couples are most likely to be promiscuous, while lesbian couples are most likely to be monogamous, leading him to conclude that the problem with monogamy is simply “dick.”

Don’t miss the 2:46 mark where Dan talks about trying to procreate and Grover Norquist sits glaring from the other side of the table. Priceless.

From Mediaite: Savage credited all of the people brave enough to come out to their families as one of the biggest contributing factors to the social progress that’s been made in the United States. One significant achievement was that, while years ago, “if one of those douchebags who’s always threatening to kill me made good on it,” as Savage put it, his family would not get the same kind of benefits straight couples would when one of the partners dies.