Dan Savage on America

At the Onion A.V. Club:

DS: It's a terribly perilous moment. Like I said, we can't be Pollyanna, we have to be vigilant, and we have to have a divided government again, so there's some limit on the powers of the President and some limit on sycophancy in Congress. [Laughs.] But I'm hopeful. I think our country has always had a pretty robust immune system. I think our country's also been tremendously ill at times, and this is one of those times. But there seems to be this capacity in our culture and our society for things to get really shitty, and then for things to right themselves through the efforts of, and the eventual coming around of, the idiotic American people. American people are dumbfucks, but eventually they get it. I love those polls that say, "A majority of Americans" agree on the gay-marriage debate, as if that's the conversation-stopper, as if that wins, proves that it's not the right thing to do. A majority of Americans has been so wrong, so often, on so many issues, that a majority of Americans supporting something should be cause for a second look at its rightness. A majority of Americans supported slavery, a majority of Americans supported the internment of the Japanese, a majority of Americans supported denying women the vote, a majority of Americans supported the Communist witch hunts, a majority of Americans often have their heads up their asses. And then we're embarrassed 10 years later when we realize we have shit all over our faces. And I think we have shit all over our faces on gay rights, and we will come around. People will feel embarrassed one day when Mexico has gay marriage, Canada has gay marriage, the whole world has gay marriage. America will be last. Pakistan will have gay marriage before we do.

AVC: You use your column to advocate freedom, but that often seems to scare people. Historically, it seems like there's a real terror that other people might somehow get the freedom to do the things we ourselves don't want to do. Why do you think that is?

DS: Because Canada got the French and Australia got the convicts and we got the fuckin' batshit crazy Christians. And that matters. We're all lied to in high school—"The Pilgrims came here seeking religious freedom." No they didn't. They were the Puritans kicked out of England. They went to Holland, Holland was like "Fuck you people," and they kicked them out too, so they came here. They came here seeking the ability to persecute everybody else—and each other—for their religious beliefs. And we are living with the descendants of those nutjobs, and we have to fight them.