OTD: The Savage We Love

 

 

The sex advice columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage was born on this day in 1964. He has a reputation for not caring whom his opinions might offend, even when they might be assumed to be politically aligned with him.

One of those times was in 1998, when he weighed in on the public hysteria over the scientific paper "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples" by Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch, and Robert Bauserman, stirred up by right-wing bigot Laura Schlesinger but joined in by politicians and pundits of all stripes. Savage wrote:

"Why is this controversial? Speaking as a survivor of CSA at fourteen with a twenty-two-year old woman; sex at fifteen with a thirty-year-old man – I can back the researchers up; I was not traumatized by these technically illegal sexual encounters; indeed, I initiated them and cherish their memory. It's absurd to think that what I did at fifteen would be considered 'child sexual abuse,' or lumped together by lazy researchers with the incestuous rape of a five-year-old girl.”

Despite there being no methodological flaws in the paper and its having passed peer review, Congress responded to public pressure and censured the American Psychological Association for having published it in the Psychological Bulletin. More shamefully, the APA in turn also acted like politicians by officially retracting the paper and stating that "political and social implications," instead of only scientific ones, would be considered in deciding whether to publish papers in the future.

In response to an APA request for a re-review, the AmericanAssociation for the Advancement of Science stated that they saw no reason to second-guess the peer reviewers' approval of the paper, which I'm linking from the comments below.

https://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Documentation/Documents/99-149_top_scien.htm

Respect the Constitution: Uphold Penn's Independence

I've signed a petition to preserve my alma mater's independence with the following comment:

Not all criticisms of current university practices are without merit, but the proper way of addressing such issues is before independent courts. Allowing the executive branch to judge institutions' compliance with civil rights or other laws is unacceptable and unconstitutional.

 

 

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/just-say-no-to-trumps-compact-for-academic-extortion

New Pilot Research Survey Released

This news from the International Cultic Studies Association:

 

Roehampton University London has officially launched the pilot phase of a groundbreaking research study on the harmful effects of mandated shunning—a form of systemic social isolation practiced by high-control religious groups.

Project Sponsors

The study is being conducted in collaboration with the Open Minds Foundation, under its StopMandatedShunning.org initiative. The goal is to gather empirical data that will help document the scope and severity of mandated shunning globally.

Call for Participation

• If you are a victim or survivor of mandated shunning, you are invited to participate in this confidential academic survey.

• If you know someone who has been affected, please share the link with them to support this important research.

Survey Link: https://stopmandatedshunning.org/survey

Why It Matters

Your participation will contribute to building a body of evidence that can support mental health professionals, legal advocates, and human rights organizations working to end this inhumane practice.

FIRE: Violence must never be a response to speech

"Violence must never be a response to speech"

by Nico Perrino, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

https://www.thefire.org/news/violence-must-never-be-response-speech

 

 

 

We are horrified by yesterday's assassination of Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University. We are horrified first and foremost because two children lost their father and a wife lost her husband. And we are further horrified because all of us at FIRE have dedicated ourselves to the defense of free speech and open debate on college campuses.

At their best, America's colleges and universities provide a unique venue to discover truth, talk across lines of difference, and develop a deeper and fuller understanding of the world. Over the years, students and student groups have invited Kirk to speak at hundreds, if not thousands, of campuses. At these events, he would share his opinions and invite others to do the same. America must be an open society where this sort of debate can take place, where we feel safe to share our ideas in the public square, not just from behind bulletproof glass and bulletproof vests.

Sigmund Freud once said civilization started the day man first cast a word instead of a stone. He was right. Words are not violence. Words are what we use instead of violence to resolve our differences. We must not lose sight of this civilization-defining distinction.

Unfortunately, since 2021, we've seen a steady rise in support for violence in response to speech on campus. Earlier this week, we released our finding that one in three students express some support for the use of violence to stop a campus speech. That's up from 20 percent only three years ago. While we do not know the identity of the gunman, what happened yesterday is indicative of a broader cancer in our body politic that we must address.

But it must not be addressed with censorship.

For more than 25 years, FIRE has challenged colleges that use speculative and amorphous security rationales to justify censoring controversial speakers. Through public records requests and other means, we’ve often found these rationales serve as a pretext to shut down debate and capitulate to demands for censorship. Indeed, according to our Deplatforming Database, Kirk was the subject of at least 14 attempts to stop him from speaking on campuses since 2021. Over the years, FIRE has repeatedly written to colleges that sought to silence Kirk’s organization and supporters.

Moving forward, we can expect colleges and universities to place even greater emphasis on security ahead of controversial speakers arriving on campus. But administrators must not pass security costs along to speakers or use security concerns as pretext to cancel a speaker’s appearance. They have a moral and legal obligation to redouble their efforts to protect free speech. Rewarding threats of violence by taxing speech or silencing speakers will only invite more threats and more violence.

Yesterday, an assassin’s veto silenced Charlie Kirk, just as it silenced the journalists and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo a decade ago, and just as it attempted to silence Salman Rushdie in 2022. But we cannot let the censors win. We cannot let violence prevail. We can and must come together in defense of our rights to be who we are and to speak our minds.

Nico Perrino

Executive Vice President, FIRE

Support Reasonable Independence for Children

Two PA state legislators are proposing a bill to prevent prosecution of parents who allow their children some time for themselves, which is essential for growing up healthy. I've sent the message below to my representative. If you're in PA, you can contact your legislators here: https://www.palegis.us/find-my-legislator.

Please co-sponsor the legislation titled "Reasonable Independence for Children" being proposed by Reps. Jeanne McNeill and Rep. Rick Krajewski. Children cannot grow up emotionally healthy and self-confident if they're denied the opportunity to spend time doing things on their own. It's been proven that overprotective parenting produces anxious children. See this study: https://www.anxietycentre.com/articles/overprotective-parenting-and-anxiety/

No Civics, Please!

Facebook just informed me that now they're recommending my profile, but don't say exactly what I was doing wrong previously. Note one of the topics this ostensibly civic-minded platform doesn't recommend.

 

Genocide Scholars Align with Philly People’s Tribunal Findings

This news comes courtesy of Fridays @ Fetterman's. The IAGS was formally founded in 1994 but its origins go back to the early '80s. 

 

 

 

The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) passed a resolution last week finding that "Israel's policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).”

The IAGS is a global, interdisciplinary, non-partisan organization that seeks to further research and teaching about the nature, causes, and consequences of genocide, and advance policy studies on genocide prevention.

The IAGS resolution aligns with the findings released on July 16, 2025 by local jurors who served at the Philadelphia People’s Tribunal on War Crimes & Genocide in Gaza.

Read the Philadelphia jurors’ report here.

On May 31, 2025, attorneys representing the Philadelphia human rights community conducted the Philadelphia People’s Tribunal on War Crimes & Genocide in Gaza. Witnesses at the Philly People’s Tribunal included international law experts, journalists, humanitarian aid workers, and Palestinians with lived experience in Gaza and in the West Bank. A current resident of Gaza testified live via Zoom at the Tribunal.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), and Fridays @ Fetterman’s co-convened the People’s Tribunal, which was endorsed by 31 organizations.