Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a popular Orthodox rabbi famous for his writings on sex and popular culture, has blasted White House-endorsed sex columnist Dan Savage for his attack on the Bible and Christianity in front of an audience of high school students, comparing Savage’s remarks to the hateful bigotry of the Westboro Baptist Church.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Rabbi Boteach said:
As an orthodox Rabbi with a gay orthodox Jewish brother, I have endeavored mightily to reconcile the dictates of my faith with the most human, loving, and respectful approach to homosexuality. I have counseled hundreds of gay men and women of faith who seek to find their place in G-d’s love amid a gay lifestyle. Such efforts at reconciliation are undone by the gratuitous hate-filled bigotry of people like Dan Savage whose response to prejudice against gays is to offer insulting and degrading prejudices against religion.
Boteach compared Savage’s anti-Christian rhetoric to that of Westboro pastor Fred Phelps, who uses offensive anti-gay slogans at demonstrations near military funerals:
Just what Savage feels he is accomplishing by using obscenity about the Bible at a journalism conference for high school students is beyond me. But what I do know is that the answers to homosexuality and faith do not lie either with religious haters like Fred Phelps who insult God by hating gays, nor with secular fanatics like Dan Savage who insult homosexuals by falsely portraying them as angry bigots.
Boteach, who is running for U.S. Congress in New Jersey and whose most recent book, Kosher Jesus, explores Jesus’s Jewish life, has challenged Savage before on the subject of monogamy, after Savage proposed infidelity as a way to avoid Anthony Weiner’s fate. In this instance, Boteach says, Savage has gone beyond the realm of debate into outright abuse and hatred.
Savage’s attack against religious students–whom he called “pansy-assed” for walking out of his speech in protest–was delivered in a speech about his anti-bullying campaign, “It Gets Better,” which has been endorsed by the White House.
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