Dan Savage Under Fire After Challenging Bible Talk

Gay activist and journalist Dan Savage caught the ire of right wing LGBT organization GOProud, which condemned a speech Savage gave at a conference for high school journalists earlier this month.

Savage devoted a few moments of his speech to his thoughts on how people and pundits use the Bible to condemn homosexuality at a conference titled, "Journalism on the Edge" for the Washington Journalism Education Association. Several students walked out on Savage, the founder of the It Gets Better Project.

"We can learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people," he said on April 13. "The same way, the same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bullshit in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it."

After the students walked out in protest, Savage retorted, "It's funny, as someone who's on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-assed some people react when you push back."

GOProud executive director Jimmy LaSalvia said in a statement Saturday, that Savage should apologize to the high school students in attendance.

“Dan Savage’s outrageous anti-Christian tirade hurts -- not helps -- the fight for gay rights in this country,” LaSalvia said. “There is nothing incompatible between being a Christian and believing that all people should be treated equally, and Dan Savage’s attacks on Christianity only fuel those on the extremist fringe who oppose gay rights.”

Watch Savage's speech below: