In response to the recent spate of suicides of American gay teenagers, Dan Savage has started the It Gets Better Project via YouTube.
Dan Savage writes:
"My heart breaks for the pain and torment you went through, Billy Lucas," a reader wrote after I posted about Billy Lucas to my blog . "I wish I could have told you that things get better."
I had the same reaction: I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.
But gay adults aren't allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don't bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay—or from ever coming out—by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.
Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don't have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids.
So here's what you can do, GBVWS: Make a video. Tell them it gets better.
I've launched a channel on YouTube — www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject — to host these videos.
"You gotta give 'em hope," Harvey Milk said.
They need to know that it gets better. Submit a video. Give them hope.
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11-year-old kids should be doing their homework and playing sports, not obsessing over their sexuality or the sexuality of their peers. If it were not for people like Dan Savage making an issue of sexuality all the time, this kid and his classmates would have been focused on other things. Maybe he would've been bullied for being a lousy soccer player. Dan Savage is the problem. He is, to quote American Elephant, "an execrable thug." The lowest form of slime.
ReplyDeleteDaft.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever noticed how homophobes - usually right-wing ones - make an issue of sexuality?
@Coco Rico
ReplyDeleteTotally agree, dude.
Not just 11-year-old kids but all kids.
I just wish someone would think of the children!
Too much is made of the need to combat the obsessively heterosexist environment that most gay kids grow up in and that addressing the balance so that gay kids don't feel so isolated or abnormal (and internalised homophobia becomes less prevalent in those discovering their sexuality) is what gay people should be doing to help these kids, rather than just remaining silent and allowing those with a vested interest in denying these kids a pride in their identity to spout their rhetoric.
This is nonsense.
It's these right-on queers who think they're trying to improve things for gay people by outing "hypocrites" like Ted Haggard, for instance - what's wrong with preaching against homosexuality but having gay sex in private, anyway? The key word here is "private" - not out in the open where we can all see it, ugh! - or who think that being open about homosexuality is a sane way to combat the isolation felt by gay kids and adults in most communities. No, it's this kind of caring slime who are the real problem for gay people.
If it wasn't for this Dan Savage the world would be free of homophobia in playgrounds and workplaces and everywhere else, probably.
"Pride"? Don't make me laugh. It's that sort of open flouting of homosexuality that has led to these suicides.
You know it has been statistically proven that there are sharp increases in incidents of homophobic violence whenever homosexuality becomes more visible - Pride, pro-gay changes in the law, appearance of gay people on TV shows, etc. The solution to this is obvious to everyone. Less visibility = less homophobia.
And you are so correct that if gay kids aren't bullied for being gay then they'd be bullied for being lousy soccer players or something. There are those - mainly pinkos, admittedly - who would say that equating lack of soccer skills with homosexuality shows a staggering degree of ignorance and wilful blindness, but not me dude. I say to these people, get a sense of proportion!
And don't get me started on Harvey Milk.
You know what his assassination was? A symptom of the gay Left's obsession over sexuality.
Is Harvey Milk to blame for these recent suicides?
To quote Sarah Palin, "You betcha!"
Respect to you for saying what most people who feel the same way wouldn't dare utter, for fear of sounding like a right-wing bigoted lunatic.
I think it's easy to be cynical about something positive like the It Gets Better Project. But positivity spreads just like cynicism and homophobia.
ReplyDeleteI spent some time watching some of the videos already uploaded and it's very moving. Not just in the sense of the individual videos but also the feeling of all these people coming together to at least try and do something to help, anything to help.
It's an obvious sentiment, but if this helps one gay kid then it's worth it, and it's quite wrong I think to dismiss that.
I tend to be over cynical about things, but I think it's a great idea.
ReplyDeleteBut I do think there's going to be a lot of insincere sentimental guff that is "inspired" by these poor boys' deaths as well though...