COLUMN: Speaker came from out of the closet, under the bridge

Last Thursday, OU took a magical turn for the worse. Taking a move straight from Voldemort from "Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone," CAC Speakers Bureau decided to let a troll into our school. Not a magical troll, but rather a gay, liberal, D-list celebrity troll named Dan Savage.

For those unfamiliar with the expression, the word "troll" is often used to describe someone who makes controversial statements simply for the sake of causing outrage. Usually this is more common within the teenage Internet forum community, but there are some who have made a living out of it, such as Glenn Beck, Bill Maher, Rush Limbaugh, and least importantly, Dan Savage.

The best response to a troll is usually to just ignore them. They thrive on attention, both positive and negative. For a troll, all press is good press.

And I would be happy to ignore Dan Savage. I have been doing so for my entire life. I honestly had no idea who he was until last week. However, it’s hard to ignore a troll when CAC Speakers Bureau is feeding it with my student fees.

For those of you who have never heard of Dan Savage, or for those who have finished the Jersey Shore and need more D-list celebrities to gossip about, Dan Savage writes a syndicated sex advice column, stars in an MTV series and started a YouTube project to help prevent GLBTQ youth suicides.

While his “It Gets Better” YouTube project — the focus of his talk — has been helpful to GLBTQ youth, surely there are more important and less controversial figures within the GLBTQ community for CAC Speakers Bureau to waste our money on.

Maybe next time we can have Hitler come talk about creating economic growth in Germany between 1933 and 1944. After all, economic growth is important and surely we can overlook his anti-Semitic statements if we can overlook the endearing statements made by Dan Savage at his speech, such as calling content in the Bible bullshit and telling Republicans to die.

Or maybe next time we can have DJ Pauly-D come talk about his new album. At least people have seen his MTV show and, to my limited knowledge, he hasn’t made a political ass out of himself.

My favorite part of the talk was during the question and answer session when an audience member submitted a question asking, “Why as a Libertarian-leaning republican should I take you seriously after your hateful comments?”

At this point, our accepting, liberal, and progressive crowd erupted into boos and exasperated “What?!”

I guess Dan Savage wasn’t the only troll there.

Hopefully CAC Speakers Bureau will consider bringing more tasteful and significant speakers to our campus next year, however, given their previous choice and the amount of tasteless jackassery I’ve fit into this column, they’ll probably just pick me to speak instead.

Scott Houser is an international business senior.

Scott Houser

Scott is a former staff member of The Oklahoma Daily who worked as Opinion Columnist and Opinion Columnist.