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A Christian ( pronunciation (help·info), (from the Ancient Greek: Χριστιανός Christianos) is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament. "Christian" derives from the Koine Greek word Christ, a translation of the Biblical Hebrew term Messiah.^[1]

Central to the Christian faith is the gospel, the teaching that humans have hope for salvation through the message and work of Jesus, and particularly, his atoning death on the cross. Christians also believe Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible.^[2] Most Christians believe in the doctrine of the Trinity ("tri-unity"), a description of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This includes the vast majority of churches in Christianity, although a minority are Non-trinitarians.

The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to describe anything associated with Christianity, or in a proverbial sense "all that is noble, and good, and Christ-like."^[3] It is also used as a label to identify people who associate with the cultural aspects of Christianity, irrespective of personal religious beliefs or practices.^[4]

Etymology[link]

The Greek word Χριστιανός (christianos)—meaning "follower of Christ"—comes from Χριστός (christos)—meaning "anointed one"^[5]—with an adjectival ending borrowed from Latin to denote adhering to, or even belonging to, as in slave ownership.^[6] In the Greek Septuagint, christos was used to translate the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Mašíaḥ, messiah), meaning "[one who is] anointed."^[7] In other European languages, equivalent words to 'Christian' are likewise derived from the Greek, such as 'Chrétien' in French and 'Cristiano' in Spanish.

Early usage[link]

The first recorded use of the term (or its cognates in other languages) is in the New Testament, in Acts 11:26, which states "...in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians." The second mention of the term follows in Acts 26:28, where Herod Agrippa II replies to Paul the Apostle, "Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?" The third and final New Testament reference to the term is in 1 Peter 4:16, which exhorts believers, "...if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name."

Another term for Christians which appears in the New Testament is "Nazarenes" which is used by the Jewish lawyer Tertullus in Acts 24. Tertullian (Against Marcion 4:8) records that "the Jews call us Nazarenes," while around 331 AD Eusebius records that Christ was called a Nazoraean from the name Nazareth, and that in earlier centuries "Christians," were once called "Nazarenes."^[8] The Hebrew equivalent of "Nazarenes", Notzrim, occurs in the Babylonian Talmud, and is still the modern Israeli Hebrew term for Christian.

All three original New Testament usages verses reflect a derisive element in the term Christian to refer to followers of Christ who did not acknowledge the emperor of Rome.^[9] The town Antioch, which is said to have given them the name Christian, had a reputation for coming up with such nicknames.^[10] However Peter's apparent endorsement of the term, led to it being preferred over "Nazarenes" and the term Christianoi from 1 Peter becomes the standard term in the Early Church Fathers from Ignatius and Polycarp onwards.^[11]

The earliest occurrences of the term in non-Christian literature include Josephus, referring to "the tribe of Christians, so named from him;"^[12] Pliny the Younger in correspondence with Trajan; and Tacitus, writing near the end of the 1st century. In the Annals he relates that "by vulgar appellation [they were] commonly called Christians"^[13] and identifies Christians as Nero's scapegoats for the Great Fire of Rome.^[14]

Modern usage[link]

The cross and Ichthys symbols, two symbols often used by Christians to represent their religion.

A wide range of beliefs and practices is found across the world among those who call themselves Christian. There is usually a consensus among many denominations about what defines a Christian, but disagreement does exist among some sects and denominations on a common definition of "Christianity." Philosopher Michael Martin, in his book The Case Against Christianity, evaluated three historical Christian creeds (the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed) to establish a set of basic assumptions which include belief in theism, the historicity of Jesus, the Incarnation, salvation through faith in Jesus, and Jesus as an ethical role model.^[15]

Hebrew terms[link]

As the identification of the Messiah with Jesus is not accepted within Judaism, the Talmudic term for Christians in Hebrew is Notzrim ("Nazarenes"), originally derived from the fact that Jesus came from the village of Nazareth in Israel.^[16] However, Messianic Jews are referred to in modern Hebrew as יהודים משיחיים (Yehudim Meshihi'im).

Arabic terms[link]

In Arabic-speaking cultures, two words are commonly used for Christians: Nasrani (نصراني), plural "Nasara" (نصارى) is generally understood to be derived from Nazareth^[17] through the Syriac (Aramaic); Masihi (مسيحي) means followers of the Messiah.^[17][18]

Where there is a distinction, Nasrani refers to people from a Christian culture and Masihi means those with a religious faith in Jesus.^[19] In some countries Nasrani tends to be used generically for non-Muslim white people.^[19] Another Arabic word sometimes used for Christians, particularly in a political context, is Salibi (صليبي "Crusader") from salib (صليب "crucifix") which refers to Crusaders and has negative connotations.^[18][20]

Asian terms[link]

The Syriac term Nasrani (Nazarene) has also been attached to the Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala, India. In the Indian subcontinent Christians call themselves "Isaai" (Hindi: ईसाई, Urdu: عیسائی), and are also known by this term to adherents of other religions.^[21] This is related to the name they call Jesus, "Isa Masih".

In the past, the Malays used to call the Portuguese Serani from the Arabic Nasrani. Today the term Serani is used for the creole Christian community of Malaysia today.

The Chinese word is 基督徒 (pinyin: jīdū tú), literally "Christ follower." The two characters now pronounced Jīdū in Mandarin Chinese, were originally pronounced Ki-To in Cantonese as representation of Latin "Cristo." Likewise in Vietnam the same two characters read Cơ đốc, and a "follower of Christianity" is a tín đồ Cơ đốc giáo. In Japan, the term kirishitan (written in Edo period documents 吉利支丹, 切支丹, and in modern Japanese histories as キリシタン), from Portuguese cristão, referred to Roman Catholic Christians in the 16th and 17th centuries before the religion was banned by the Tokugawa shogunate. Today Christians are referred to in standard Japanese as Kuristo-kyo-to キリスト教徒, or the English-derived term kurisuchan クリスチャン. Korean still uses Kidok-kyo-do (written in hangul as 기독교도) for "Christian," though the Greek form Kurisudo 그리스도 has now replaced the old Sino-Korean Kidok for Christ himself.

Demographics[link]

As of the early 21st century, Christianity has around 2.1 billion adherents.^[22][23][24] The faith represents about a quarter to a third of the world's population and is the largest religion in the world, with approximately 38,000 Christian denominations.^[25] Christians have composed about 33 percent of the world's population for around 100 years. The largest Christian denomination is the Roman Catholic Church, with 1.17 billion adherents, representing half of all Christians.^[26]

Percentage of Christians worldwide

Twenty countries with the most Christians

Country	Christians	% Christian
United States (details)	176,400,000	78.4%
Brazil (details)	174,700,000	90.4%
Mexico (details)	105,095,000	94.5%
Russia (details)	99,775,000	70.3%
Philippines (details)	90,530,000	92.4%
Nigeria (details)	76,281,000	48.2%
Congo, Democratic Republic of (details)	68,558,000	95.6%
China, People's Republic of (details)	66,959,000	5.0%
Italy (details)	55,070,000	91.1%
Ethiopia (details)	54,978,000	64.5%
Germany (details)	49,400,000	59.9%
Colombia (details)	44,502,000	97.6%
Ukraine (details)	41,973,000	91.5%
South Africa (details)	39,843,000	79.7%
Argentina (details)	37,561,000	92.7%
Poland (details)	36,526,000	95.7%
Spain (details)	35,568,000	77.2%
France (details)	35,014,000	53.5%
Kenya (details)	34,774,000	85.1%
Uganda (details)	29,943,000	88.6%

See also[link]

Christianity portal

• Christendom
• Christian Church
• Conversion to Christianity
• Cultural Christian
• Lists of Christians
• Rice Christian, referring to people who profess Christianity for material benefits

Bibliography[link]

Etymology

• Bickerman, Elias J. (April, 1949). "The Name of Christians". The Harvard Theological Review 42 (2): 109–124. JSTOR 1507955.  also available in Bickerman, Elias J. (1986). Studies in Jewish and Christian history. ISBN 90-04-04395-0. http://books.google.com/?id=gqQfAAAAIAAJ.  (from which page numbers are cited)
• Wuest, Kenneth Samuel (1973). Wuest's word studies from the Greek New Testament. 1. ISBN 978-0-8028-2280-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZHhK3AKkc9EC. 

References[link]

Bob Simon (born May 29, 1941) is a CBS News television correspondent.

From 1964–67, Simon served as an American Foreign Service officer and was a Fulbright Scholar in France and a Woodrow Wilson scholar. From 1969–71, he served a tour in the CBS News London bureau. From 1971–77, he was based in the London and Saigon bureaus where he served as a Vietnam War correspondent. From 1977–81, he was assigned to the CBS News Tel Aviv bureau.

From 1981–82, he spent time in Washington, D.C., as the CBS News State Department correspondent. From 1982–87, Simon served as a New York-based CBS News national correspondent. In 1987, Simon was named the CBS News Chief Middle Eastern correspondent.^[1]

During the opening days of the Gulf War in January 1991, Simon and his CBS News team were captured by Iraqi forces and spent 40 days in Iraqi prisons; he later chronicled the experience in the book, Forty Days.

In 1996, Simon joined 60 Minutes as a correspondent, and in 1998 he was named a 60 Minutes II correspondent. Notable stories he has done in recent years include the first profile of the so-called "Lost Boys of Sudan", and an exclusive interview with Iraqi Shiite insurgency leader Muqtada al-Sadr. He currently serves as the Senior Foreign Correspondent for 60 Minutes.

In April 2012, 60 Minutes aired a piece on the plight of Christians in the holy land, for which Simon was the correspondent. Michael Oren, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, contacted CBS news calling the piece a "hatchet job". As a result, Simon castigated Oren during an interview that was included with the piece.

Awards[link]

• Recipient of the Edward Weintal Prize given by Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy in recognition of "distinguished reporting on foreign policy and diplomacy"
• 22-time Emmy Award winner
• 4-time Overseas Press Club recipient
• Winner of the George Foster Peabody Award

References[link]

1. ^ Bob Simon -CBS-

External links[link]

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Bob Simon on Charlie Rose
• Bob Simon at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Bob Simon in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Bob Simon at the Notable Names Database

This biographical article related to television journalism in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Michael Oren
Israeli Ambassador to the United States
Incumbent
Assumed office July 20, 2009
Preceded by	Sallai Meridor
Personal details
Born	Michael Scott Bornstein 1955 New York, United States
Citizenship	Israeli
Alma mater	Columbia University Princeton University
Religion	Judaism

Michael B. Oren (Hebrew: מיכאל אורן; born Michael Scott Bornstein; 1955) is an American-born Israeli historian, author, and the Israeli ambassador to the United States.^[1] He has written books, articles, and essays on Middle Eastern history, and is the author of the best-selling Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present and Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, which won the Los Angeles Times History Book of the Year Award. He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and a contributing editor to The New Republic and the Shalem Center's quarterly journal, Azure.

Early life[link]

Oren was born Michael Scott Bornstein in upstate New York, the son of Marilyn (née Goldstein), a marriage and family therapist, and Lester Milton Bornstein, a hospital director.^[2][3] His father was an officer in the U.S. Army who took part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944 and fought in the Korean War.^[4] Oren grew up in West Orange, New Jersey in a Conservative Jewish household. As the only Jewish boy in a heavily Catholic neighborhood, he says he experienced antisemitism on a daily basis. In his youth, he was an activist in Zionist and Jewish youth groups such as USY and a gold medal winning athlete in the Maccabiah Games.^[5] At age 15, he made his first trip to Israel with youth movement Habonim Dror, working on Kibbutz Gan Shmuel.^[4]

In 1977, Oren completed his undergraduate degree from Columbia College. He continued his studies at Columbia, receiving a Masters in International Affairs in 1978 from the School of International and Public Affairs, where he was an International Fellow and a DACOR Fellow. ^[6] After college, he spent a year as an adviser to the Israeli delegation to the United Nations.^[4] In 1979, Oren emigrated to Israel.^[7] A few years later, Oren returned to the United States to continue his education, studying at Princeton University. In 1986, he earned an MA and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies.^[8]

Military service[link]

In 1979, Oren joined the Israel Defense Forces. He served as a paratrooper in the 1982 Lebanon War.^[9] His unit was caught in a Syrian ambush on the second day of the war. His commander was killed and nearly everyone was wounded. He then joined a unit stationed in Sidon. Oren married in the summer of 1982 and returned the next day to Beirut.^[4] During the 1991 Gulf War he was Israeli liaison officer to the United States Sixth Fleet.^[9] He was called up for reserve duty for the 2005 Gaza disengagement, and participated in the evacuation of settlements.^[10] He served as an army spokesman in the IDF reserves during the 2006 Lebanon War.^[9] During the 2008-2009 Gaza War, he was a media relations officer.^[11]

Academic career[link]

In 2006, Oren was a visiting professor at both Harvard University and Yale University. He continued teaching at Yale in 2007. Beginning in 2008, he became a visiting professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service for the 2008–09 academic year as part of the faculty associated with the Program for Jewish Civilization.^[12][13]

President George W. Bush appointed Oren to serve on the honorary delegation to accompany him to Jerusalem for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel in May 2008.^[14]

Ambassadorship[link]

On May 3, 2009, Oren was appointed as ambassador of Israel to the United States by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, succeeding Sallai Meridor. Ambassador Oren had to give up his United States citizenship in order to assume this post.^[15]

Oren strongly condemned the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict report, which determined Israel was guilty of possible war crimes. In an October 2009 op-ed in The New Republic, he stated, "The Goldstone Report goes further than Ahmadinejad and the Holocaust deniers by stripping the Jews not only of the ability and the need but of the right to defend themselves."^[16]

In October 2009, Oren declined an invitation to attend a conference hosted by J Street, a left-leaning Israel advocacy group, which has been critical of the Israel government's foreign policy and relations with the Palestinians.^[17] He continued his criticism after the conference, calling J Street "a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all policies of all Israeli governments. It's significantly out of the mainstream."^[18] However, the two have since come to a more congenial understanding, with Oren stating that "J Street has now come and supported Congressman [Howard] Berman's Iran sanction bill; it has condemned the Goldstone Report; it has denounced the British court's decision to try Tzipi Livni for war crimes, which puts J Street much more into the mainstream."^[19]

On February 8, 2010, Oren spoke at the University of California Irvine. During his speech Oren was interrupted by 11 protesters who shouted, "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech,"^[20] and "How many Palestinians did you kill?"^[21] The outburst and subsequent arrest of the protesters sparked controversy over whether the protesters were exercising free speech, as they claimed they were, or whether it was a suppression of free speech (i.e. of the right of Oren and his audience to a free exchange of ideas), as university officials claimed.^[22] On September 23, 2011, a jury convicted 10 Muslim students, 7 from UC Irvine and 3 from UC Riverside, of disrupting Oren's February 2010 speech. The students were sentenced to 56 hours of community service and three years of informal probation, which could be lessened to one year if the community service is completed by the end of January 2012. ^[23]

Following the Gaza flotilla raid in May 2010, Oren wrote an op-ed in The New York Times, "An Assault, Cloaked in Peace", in which he accused the organizers of the flotilla of attempting to "create a provocation" in order to "put international pressure on Israel to drop the Gaza embargo". He further made the claim that the Mavi Marmara was "a vessel too large to be neutralized by technical means".^[24]

Oren attempted to influence a critical 2012 CBS report by Bob Simon about Palestinian Christians in Israel, with some calling his interference an attempt to silence the American media.^[25] Oren responded that "at no point" had he tried to prevent the report.^[25] He called the 60 Minutes story critical of Israel's policies anti-semitic.^[26]

Writings[link]

Political commentary[link]

Oren has written many articles commenting on current political issues. He is a frequent contributor to The New Republic.^[27]

Middle East history[link]

Power, Faith and Fantasy, a history of American involvement in the Middle East, was published by Norton and quickly became a New York Times bestseller. Power, Faith and Fantasy earned positive reviews from Newsweek, The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Willamette Week.^{[28][29][30][31][32]}

Oren's Six Days of War is an historical account of the events of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The book was widely praised by critics and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History. It spent seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.^[33] The New York Times Book Review wrote positively of Six Days of War,^[34] as did the Washington Post, which called it "not only the best book so far written on the Six Day War, it is likely to remain the best."^[35]

Fiction[link]

Oren wrote a novel that was published in 2000 and Reunion in 2004. Sand Devil, based primarily on his own life and cloaked as fiction, serves as a romantic pseudo memoir.

Published work[link]

• Oren, Michael (2002). Six Days of War:June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Presidio Press. ISBN 978-0-345-46192-6.
• Oren, Michael (2003). Reunion. New York: Plume. ISBN 978-1-931561-26-6.
• Oren, Michael (2007). Power, Faith, and Fantasy: The United States in the Middle East, 1776 to 2006. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-0-393-33030-4.
• Hazony, David; Hazony, Yoram; and Oren, Michael B. (Eds.) (2007). New Essays on Zionism. Shalem Press. ISBN 978-965-7052-44-0.

References[link]

v t e Israeli ambassadors to the United States Eilat (1948–50) · Eban (1950–59) · Harman (1959–1968) · Rabin (1968–1973) · Dinitz (1973–1979) · Evron (1979–1982) · Arens (1982–1983) · Rosenne (1983–1987) · Arad (1987–1990) · Shoval (1990–1993) · Itamar Rabinovich (1993–1996) · Ben-Elissar (1996–1998) · Shoval (1998–2000) · Ivry (2000–2002) · Ayalon (2002–2006) · Meridor (2006–2009) · Oren (2009–)

External links[link]

• Ambassador Michael B. Oren
• Booknotes interview with Oren on Six Days of War, August 25, 2002.
• Interview at Uncommon Knowledge (June 23, 2003)
• Interview at USA Today (May 28, 2005)
• Article at The Harvard Crimson
• Feature at The Yale Daily News
• The Shalem Center
• Program for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University

Dan Savage
Dan Savage in 2005
Born	Daniel Keenan Savage (1964-10-07) October 7, 1964 (age 47) Chicago, Illinois
Other names	Keenan Hollahan
Education	B.A., Theater, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign[1]
Occupation	Author, media pundit, journalist, newspaper editor and sex advice columnist
Spouse	Terry Miller
Children	D.J.

Daniel Keenan "Dan" Savage (born October 7, 1964)^[2] is an American author, media pundit, journalist and newspaper editor.^[3][4] Savage writes the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love. Its tone is frank in its discussion of sexuality, often humorous, and hostile to social conservatives and Rick Santorum's views on homosexuality. Savage has clashed with cultural conservatives on the right, and the gay establishment, on the left. He has also worked as a theater director, both under his real name and under the name Keenan Hollahan, using his middle name and his grandmother's maiden name.^[5] In 2010, Savage and his husband Terry Miller began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth.

Personal life[link]

Dan Savage was born to William and Judy Savage in Chicago, Illinois.^[6] He is of Irish ancestry.^[7] The third of four children,^[6] Savage was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary North, which he has described as "a Catholic high school in Chicago for boys thinking of becoming priests."^[8] Though Savage has stated that he is now "a wishy-washy agnostic" and an atheist,^[9] he has said that he still considers himself "culturally Catholic."^[8][10]

Savage attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied theater and history.^[6] As a theater director, Savage (working under the name "Keenan Hollahan") was a founder of Seattle's Greek Active Theater.^[10] Much of the group's work has been queer recontextualizations of classic works, such as a tragicomic Macbeth with both the title character and Lady Macbeth played by performers of the opposite sex. In March 2001, he directed his own Egguus at Consolidated Works, a parody of Peter Shaffer's 1973 play Equus which exchanged a fixation on horses for a fixation on chickens. Savage has not directed, produced, or performed in any productions since a 2003 production of Letters from the Earth, also at Consolidated Works, his trimmed version of Mark Twain's The Diary of Adam and Eve, which received scathing reviews, including one from his own paper, "My Boss's Show Stinks".^[11]

Savage and his husband, Terry, have one adopted son, D.J.,^[12] and were married in Vancouver, BC in 2005.^[13][14]

Savage Love[link]

In 1991, Savage was living in Madison, Wisconsin, and working as a manager at a local video store that specialized in independent film titles.^[6] There, Savage befriended Tim Keck, co-founder of The Onion, who announced that he was moving to Seattle to help start an alternative weekly newspaper titled The Stranger.^[6] Savage "made the offhand comment that forever altered [his] life: 'Make sure your paper has an advice column—everybody claims to hate 'em, but everybody seems to read 'em'."^[15] Savage typed up a sample column, and to Savage's surprise Keck offered him the job.^[16][17]

Savage stated in a February 2006 interview in The Onion's A.V. Club (which publishes his column) that he began the column with the express purpose of providing mocking advice to heterosexuals, since most straight advice columnists were "clueless" when responding to letters from gay people.^[16] Savage wanted to call the column "Hey Faggot!" in an effort to reclaim a hate word. His editors at the time refused his choice of column name, but for the first several years of the column, he attached "Hey Faggot!" at the beginning of each printed letter as a salutation."^[18] In his February 25, 1999 column, Savage announced that he was retiring the phrase, claiming that the reclamation was successful.^[18]

He has written in a number of columns about "straight rights" concerns, such as the HPV vaccine and the morning-after pill, stating in his November 9, 2005, column that "[t]he right-wingers and the fundies and the sex-phobes don't just have it in for the queers. They're coming for your asses too."

Media appearances[link]

Dan Savage speaking at Illinois Wesleyan University, 2007

In addition to maintaining his weekly column and authoring four books, Savage has been involved in several other projects.

From 1994 until 1997, he had a weekly three-hour call-in show called Savage Love Live on Seattle's KCMU (now KEXP). From 1998 to 2000, he ran the biweekly advice column Dear Dan on the news website abcnews.com.

He is now the editorial director of the weekly Seattle newspaper The Stranger, a promotion from his former position as The Stranger's editor-in-chief.^[19] Savage currently stars in Savage U on MTV, contributes frequently to This American Life and Out magazine, and acts as a "Real Time Real Reporter" on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. He has also made multiple appearances on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 discussing LGBT political issues such as same-sex marriage and Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Podcast[link]

The Savage Lovecast is a weekly audio podcast based on Savage's column Savage Love, available via iTunes and at the Stranger's website for free download. It features Savage doing a call-in version of his sex advice column. It is routinely rated as the top podcast in the iTunes "Health" category.^[20]

Opinions and points of view[link]

It Gets Better Project[link]

Dan Savage speaking at Google about the It Gets Better Project

On September 21, 2010, Savage started the It Gets Better Project in light of the suicide of 15-year-old Billy Lucas, who was bullied for his perceived sexual orientation. The project encourages adults, both LGBT and otherwise, to submit videos assuring gay teenagers that life can improve after bullying in early life.^[21] As of January 3, 2011, the project had over 5,000 user created testimonials.^[22]

Political advocacy[link]

Dan Savage at the 5th Avenue High School Musical Theatre Awards, 2006

Savage has written about his interest in political matters. His political leanings are primarily liberal, with pronounced contrarian and libertarian streaks.^[23] For example, he wrote that in 2000, suffering from the flu while on an assignment for salon.com to cover the Iowa caucuses,^[24] he was so angered by televised remarks in opposition to same-sex marriage by conservative Republican presidential hopeful Gary Bauer that he abandoned his original plan "to follow one of the loopy conservative Christian candidates around — Bauer or Alan Keyes — and write something insightful and humanizing about him, his campaign, and his supporters."^[25] Instead, he volunteered for the Bauer campaign with the intent to infect the candidate with his flu. He wrote that he licked doorknobs and other objects in the campaign office, and handed Bauer a saliva-coated pen, hoping to pass the virus on to Bauer and his supporters (though he later said that much of the article had been fictitious). He also registered and participated in the caucus, which was illegal, as Savage was not an Iowa resident. He was charged and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent voting in a caucus, and was sentenced to a year's probation, 50 hours of community service, and a $750 fine.^{[26][27][28][29]}

Savage frequently mentions political issues in his column, particularly issues that affect family planning, birth control, and sexuality. He often encourages readers to get involved and/or voice a positive or negative opinion about a politician or public official.

After Rick Santorum, then a United States senator from Pennsylvania, made comments to a reporter comparing homosexual sex to bestiality and incest in 2003, Savage assailed Santorum in his column. Later, he sponsored a contest that led to the term santorum being used to refer to "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes a byproduct of anal sex".^[30] Savage set up a website to spread the definition.^[31] In 2010, Savage offered to remove his website if Rick Santorum would agree to donate US$5 million to a gay rights group.^[32][33] The organization, Freedom to Marry, advocates on behalf of same-sex marriage in the United States.^[33][34] Savage told Mother Jones in 2010, "If Rick Santorum wants to make a $5 million donation to [the gay marriage group] Freedom to Marry, I will take it down. Interest starts accruing now."^[35] Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, responded in a statement to Metro Weekly: "Support for Freedom to Marry's national campaign would be welcome—and a good way for Rick Santorum to start cleaning up the discriminatory mess he and his companions have made."^[36]

Savage continued the tradition in 2009 by having his readers vote to define saddlebacking as "the phenomenon of Christian teens engaging in unprotected anal sex in order to preserve their virginities",^[37] as a protest against the vocal support given to California Proposition 8 by Rick Warren (pastor of Saddleback Church), and President Barack Obama's invitation to Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. When Savage vowed to boycott Utah due to strong Mormon support for Proposition 8 ("Fuck you, Utah – we’re going to big, blue Colorado"), the Salt Lake City Weekly dropped Savage's column: "all Utahns aren’t to blame."^[38]

Savage strongly supported the war in Iraq in the pages of The Stranger in October 2002.^[39] By the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003, however, he had somewhat softened his argument.^[40]

Savage has also been a vocal opponent of state legislation proscribing the sale of sex toys. After an exposé by Kandiss Crone from WLBT (Jackson, Mississippi) precipitated the arrest and fining of an adult video store owner, Savage suggested that readers send any sex toys that they needed to dispose of to Crone.^[41][42]

Personal opinions[link]

Dan Savage discussing sex education with his brother, Northwestern University Senior Lecturer in English, Bill Savage (2010)

• Savage initially supported the Iraq war and advocated military action against other Middle Eastern states, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, saying, "Islamo-fascism is a regional problem, like European fascism – and the Middle East [has] to be remade just as Europe was remade." One week before the war began, Savage spoke against it, citing the inability of President George W. Bush to form a convincing case and sway the UN and NATO allies.^[40] By 2005 he deemed the situation "hopeless" and advocated an immediate troop withdrawal.^[43]
• He describes his view toward family as "conservative", and his husband, Terry Miller, is a "stay-at-home dad" for the couple's adopted son. He has, however, expressed skepticism of "simplistic" views of monogamy.^[44]
• In response to a letter asking "Is the AIDS crisis over?" Savage, in his October 22, 1997 column, answered simply, "Yes." Several weeks of columns were devoted in whole or in part to discussion of the issue.^[45][46]
• He opposes the tactics of the War on Drugs, and opposes the prohibition of certain controlled substances.^[47]

Views on outing[link]

Savage stated in a column that he favors outing in some cases, specifically mentioning anti-gay activist Tyler Whitney. However, in the same column he noted that "I recently talked someone out of outing a public figure. A Savage Love reader was contemplating outing an innocuous celebrity back in April. I advised him against it because, as I wrote to him privately, outing is brutal and it should be reserved for brutes."^[48]

Local issues[link]

Savage's editorship of The Stranger has established him as a voice in local Seattle politics. His most high-profile commentary has been as an outspoken critic of the Teen Dance Ordinance and other crackdowns on all-ages events.

Savage argues that closing down supervised all-ages dance venues drives teens to boredom and reckless activities: "Places like Ground Zero and the Kirkland Teen Center are invaluable from a law enforcement point of view. They keep kids out of, say, 7-Eleven parking lots or the homes of friends whose parents are away."^[49]

Controversies[link]

In a 2006 interview with the Daily Pennsylvanian, Savage stated that then-Green Party Senate candidate Carl Romanelli, whom Savage claimed was partially funded by state Republicans for a spoiler effect against Democrat Bob Casey, "should be dragged behind a pickup truck until there's nothing left but the rope". In the same interview, he stated, "Mr. Romanelli should go fuck himself."^[50] Immediately after the interview, Savage wrote, "I regret using that truck metaphor, and didn't mean it literally, and it was in poor taste, and I regret it."^[51]

On HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher July 15, 2011, during a panel discussion of the debt limit increase negotiations between the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama, Savage said in a stand-alone remark, "I wish the Republicans were all fucking dead."^[52] He apologized for his remarks on his blog later the same night saying in part, "I don't feel that way. My dad is a Republican. (Well, he says he's an independent, but he hasn't voted for a Democrat since JFK. My dad is a Republican.)"^[53]

Savage has been glitter bombed three times, twice in 2011 and once in 2012, by protesters who alleged that Savage is transphobic, among other accusations.^{[54][55][56][57]} A 2012 Feminist Wire piece argued that the "... the popularity of the [It Gets Better] campaign and its legitimacy depend on the very subtle exclusion of non-white and non-bourgeois bodies".^[58]

Savage came under scrutiny for an April 13, 2012 speech encouraging high school students to, "learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people", prompting some students to leave the auditorium. Savage apologized on April 29 for calling the walkout "a pansy-assed move", saying, "I wasn't calling the handful of students who left pansies (2,800+ students, most of them Christian, stayed and listened), just the walkout itself." Savage stood by the central point of his speech.^[59][60][61]

Works[link]

In addition to his advice column, Savage has written four books, edited one book, and authored various op-ed pieces in The New York Times.

Awards[link]

References[link]