Dan Savage has dared Tony Perkins to
sue him over recent criticisms, including that Perkins wishes gay
teens dead.
During an address at Winona State
University, Savage, the editor of Seattle alternative The Stranger
and a co-founder of the It Gets Better Project, denounced Perkins,
saying that “every dead gay kid is a victory for the Family
Research Council.”
Perkins “sits on a pile of dead kids
every day when he goes to work – and he calls himself a Christian”
and “tells the parents of queer kids to do what Tony Perkins damn
well knows drives those kids to suicide – doubles their already
quadruple risk of suicide.”
Perkins, the president of the Christian
conservative Family Research Council (FRC), hit back during an
appearance on Mike Huckabee's radio show.
“As my teenagers would say, he has
some issues,” Perkins said. “He is a man with some real
deep-seated issues ... and Dan Savage is nowhere near, he's a hundred
and eighty degrees from the positions that we have taken. It's wrong
and I will tell you this, we are pursuing everything possible to deal
with him because he is out of control.”
On Thursday, Savage dared Perkins on
his implicit threat to take legal action.
“Sue me, Tony,” he
wrote in a blog post. “I'd love to see you talk about my
'issues' on a witness stand.”
“I realize that this isn't how you
think the world is supposed to work, Tony. You believe – and
you're old enough to remember a time when – people like you were
free to say vile and disgusting things about people like me without
anyone objecting. Certainly people like me weren't allowed to call
people like you out. You still believe you should be free to lie
about me and other LGBT people with absolutely impunity – we're all
pedophiles and terrorists and Satanists – and that we should have
to shut up and take it because … well, I'm not sure why you think
we're not allowed to respond when you lie about us.”
“Maybe that's something we could get
to the bottom of during the depositions,” he added.