Confusion, forced guilt, conflicting values, hypocrisy, and baseless societal norms.
It all makes for a really bad headache.
In the late 1980s I was editor of a metro wide teen newspaper. It was a great job, but I quickly learned it came with a great responsibility. Not too long after I started working there, I noticed the sometimes-depressing letters and poems I received. Whether I wanted the role or not, destiny had placed the lives of hurting teens in my arms. There were teens in great anguish out there, and some of them were killing themselves.
In 1989, our newspaper teamed up with Campfire USA, local social workers, and a mental health organization to form a teen suicide prevention coalition. Our goal was ambitious — we wanted to hold a city-wide rally and start a prevention group in every school in metro Atlanta. Teens from our group made a presentation at every school board meeting in the area and we received widespread support. A large Atlanta-based firm agreed to underwrite our first metro-wide rally. The event was attended by nearly four hundred kids, and there were sports celebrities and TV stars present. Afterwards, the teen representatives returned to their schools to form suicide prevention groups.
Most troubling were the teen suicides without notes, and it was believed that many of these were gay suicides. At the time, there was a string of one car teen fatalities, and these were believed to be deliberate. Gwinnett County, a suburban county of Atlanta, was especially hit with teen suicides. To address the problem, the local newspaper hosted a forum and I was invited to sit on a panel. The event was held in an auditorium and it was standing room only. The room was dark and I was sitting at a table, on a stage, facing hundreds of teens who were seated and standing along the sides and rear. I was suppose to start the discussion, and the moderator read the first question submitted by someone in the audience. "I am at my wits end, my life is falling apart, and I am considering suicide. What should I do?" Wow. I leaned forward to the microphone and I could hear my voice echo throughout the auditorium, and I basically talked about how perception made things worse than they really were, and that the goal was to stick it out because things would get better. The social worker sitting next to me then took the microphone and mumbled a lot of psychology jargon. The evening did get better as we let the teens in the audience do most of the talking and sharing. That's important because I believe that LISTENING is a key to teen suicide prevention.
There were more letters and poems, and often they did not have a return address. What I saw and felt was a lot of deep pain. The secretary of the Atlanta Gay Center contacted me about doing a series of articles on the topic of teen gay suicide. In one of the great regrets of my life, I refused because I was afraid our newspaper would get kicked out of the more conservative schools.
What I learned ...
What I learned is compassion. In a way, our society is literally killing its gay youth. I remember one letter in particular from a gay teen in Marietta, GA. I was given a glimpse of the pain, persecution, guilt, needless humiliation, and suffering that many of these youth go through. And the persecution is all for absolutely nothing.
Gay marriage
All year my stomach has been churning as I hear the pious politicians scream about gay marriage bans. They are trying to position themselves to win the favor — and vote — of the self righteous and hypocritical religious conservatives. But what they don't know is that they are hurting completely innocent people and they are creating a culture that condones persecution and hatred against gays.
It is a total joke to talk about "sanctity of marriage" when the divorce rate is 52 percent. Marriage is not about a union between a man and a woman. Marriage is a truly beautiful thing where two humans COMMIT the rest of their lives to one another — it is the ultimate act of love. "Love" is what is sacred in this world, not a legal marriage document.
Do I expect gays to be moral? Absolutely. I expect gays to be true to their commitments, faithful spouses, good citizens, and caring individuals. If a gay gets married and commits adultery, then they are just as big a weenie as a heterosexual person.
It is not wrong to be gay, and I have 100 percent peace with that in my heart. What is wrong are the ridicules charades, innuendo, misinformation, and downright lies that lead people to justify their overt and subvert persecution of gays. It is WRONG to treat a gay person anything less than a complete equal.
I am grateful for the gay friends that I have had in my life — they would destroy all the stereotypes that the Righteous Ones try to throw on them. They are good people with feelings and dreams, just like you and me.
The rancorous debate over gay marriage is wasting taxpayer money and taking up valuable time both in Congress and in many state legislatures. To the Righteous Ones leading the charge, let me assure you that gay marriage is not an attack on family values or morality. No gay couple is going to become less moral by getting married. Give me a break.
And for the record, I will never retract my statements above.
Yellow Canary
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