Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - (सिद्धार्थ गौतम)
Monday, October 4, 2010
Via HRC: Do we need more proof than the suicides of teens as young as 13 that words like these can do unimaginable damage?
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| Dear Daniel,
The recent suicides of several gay teenagers have made national headlines. Yet this is the moment – of all moments – that a top Mormon leader decides to broadcast a verbal rampage against gays to millions of viewers. I couldn't believe it either. Boyd K. Packer, the second-highest leader in the Mormon Church, said in a sermon broadcast to millions yesterday that same-sex attraction is "impure and unnatural" and can be overcome, and that same-sex unions are morally wrong. Do we need more proof than the suicides of teens as young as 13 that words like these can do unimaginable damage? We cannot stay silent. By speaking out together, we can show the Mormon Church hierarchy that it has literally risked the lives of children by inciting their tormentors. And we can ensure that the young people who heard this sermon know that it is scientifically wrong and profoundly misguided. Speaking before 20,000 people and broadcasting to millions more, Packer said same-sex unions are morally wrong and "against God's law and nature" – and that the church hierarchy would continue to support marriage bans like Proposition 8 (which was funded largely by Mormons). It makes me physically sick to think how many young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender kids had to sit in those pews and listen to that venom. Comments like these are exactly what makes young LGBT kids think there's no way out but suicide – that their parents will reject them, that their communities will shun them, and that living openly will bring pain or violence – that even God looks on their very identity as a sin to be "overcome." And these lies fuel the bullying, harassment, and violence that plague our schools. Packer's lies have been disproven over and over again by science and by the spiritual experience of Americans who know their LGBT neighbors and care about them. We know sexual orientation cannot and should not be changed and that two people falling in love is beautiful, not evil. But unless we refute these lies whenever groups like the anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the Mormon Church repeat them – whether through letters like this or projects like HRC's www.NOMexposed.com – we risk another young person hearing them and believing that LGBT people are "defective." And that belief contributes to violence and suicide. Americans are sick of the Mormon hierarchy trying to dictate what they should believe. They know commitment and love when they see it. That's why they are turning away in droves from limitations on their friends' and neighbors' freedom to marry. Thank you for helping take a stand for the truth. Sincerely,  Joe Solmonese President  This link is specific to you, so please take action before you forward to your friends. Having trouble clicking on the links above? Simply copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar to reach the action page: http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=945 | |
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Via HimalayaCrafts:
He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye. - (सिद्धार्थ गौतम)
Via JMG: HomoQuotable - Joe Solmonese
“Words have consequences, particularly when they come from a faith leader. This is exactly the kind of statement that can lead some kids to bully and others to commit suicide. When a faith leader tells gay people that they are a mistake because God would never have made them that way and they don’t deserve love, it sends a very powerful message that violence and/or discrimination against LGBT people is acceptable. It also emotionally devastates those who are LGBT or may be struggling with their sexual orientation or gender identify. His words were not only inaccurate, they were also dangerous." - Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese, responding to Mormon leader Boyd Packer's address to millions of LDS members.Via JMG: New Survey: 8% Gay, 7% Lesbian
In what they are calling the "largest nationally representative study of sexual and sexual-health behaviors ever fielded," a just-released survey commissioned by Indiana University says that 8% of adult American men self-identify as gay or bisexual, with 7% of women identifying as lesbian or bisexual. Those numbers are almost triple the percentages claimed by some anti-gay groups.
ABC News takes note of the study's "interesting findings."
About 85 percent of men reported that their partner had an orgasm during their most recent sexual encounter, but only 64 percent of women report having had one. Researchers said the difference is too great to attribute to men having had their last encounter with another man. Eight percent of men and 7 percent of women identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, but a much higher percentage report engaging in sexual activity with someone of the same sex at least once. The study found that 15 percent of men aged 50-59 have received oral sex from another man at some point.Here's one of the sexual behaviors graphs from the study.
Via ACLU: It Gets Better Project
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When Dan Savage launched the It Gets Better Project to reach out to distressed LGBT teenagers, gay and lesbian staffers here at the ACLU knew we had to participate.
So, we got together, looked into the camera, and spoke from the heart.
Dan started It Gets Better after a 15-year-old Indiana teenager committed suicide after being bullied by his classmates for being gay. There were five similar suicides across the country in September.
Please watch our video today — and share it far and wide.
Let's make sure we reach every corner of America with this important message — it really does get better.
Sincerely,
So, we got together, looked into the camera, and spoke from the heart.
Dan started It Gets Better after a 15-year-old Indiana teenager committed suicide after being bullied by his classmates for being gay. There were five similar suicides across the country in September.
Please watch our video today — and share it far and wide.
Let's make sure we reach every corner of America with this important message — it really does get better.
Sincerely,
 Anthony D. Romero Executive Director ACLU |
You Are Loved Vigil 10.03.10 'Over the Rainbow'
Cheyenne Jackson leads the crowd of thousands at You-Are-Loved Vigil at Washington Square Park 10.03.10 NYC/NYU GLBTQ Bullying Crisis 'It Gets Better'
Sunday, October 3, 2010
2nd Quote of the Day - HimalayaCrafts:
Quote of the day via HimalayaCrafts:
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. - (सिद्धार्थ गौतम)
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Via JMG: NOM Fires Back At HRC
In response to the Human Rights Campaign's NOM Exposed website, NOM has created Exposing NOM Exposed. NOM's Brian Brown cackles: Sometimes you just have to have a good belly laugh. Don't get me wrong—the work we are doing is serious and important. But when the largest same-sex marriage group in the nation, with its annual budget of $40 million, decides to launch a new website to "expose" NOM and the work we are doing together, I have to wonder what they were thinking. Seriously. Go visit the site for yourself: NOMExposed.org.
When I first went to the site, I half-expected Vincent Price's voice to start streaming from the site at any moment because it looked like a fan-site for the "Thriller" video. It is seriously the most over-the-top, ghoulishly designed, hilariously campy website I have ever seen. Ever. While the site itself is a joke, the reasons behind it are not: Intimidation, bullying & religious bigotry. But we will not be silenced. Will you stand with us to protect marriage and religious liberty?
Via Teaching Tolerance: 'It Gets Better' Can Help LGBT Kids Survive
Billy Lucas grew up an Indiana farm boy in Greensburg—halfway between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, Ohio. He grew up winning blue ribbons for his prized and much loved horses and lambs. He also grew up enduring taunts, threats, and physical abuse from bullies. He grew up with those bullies telling him he should kill himself because they thought he was gay. Whether he was or not, Billy never said.
In early September, Billy Lucas stopped growing up. He tied a horse’s lead around his neck and hanged himself in the barn. He was 15. Reports from friends and fellow students described a pattern of harassment at Greensburg High that had been escalating. The day he died, Billy had been suspended for lashing out verbally at those who were tormenting him. Administrators claimed ignorance of any problems. Sadly similar stories have been cropping up in the media lately.
News like this especially grieves members of the adult LGBT community, many of whom remember their own trauma and tribulations running the gauntlet of high school hallways. Studies repeatedly show that gay and questioning teens are much more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers, especially if they come from families who strongly disapprove of homosexuality. While many progressive communities have had the guts to battle homophobia in their schools, that awareness rarely extends beyond the ring of a city’s suburbs.
How to reach LGBT youth as well as others perceived as “different” trapped in insulated communities? Dan Savage, the Seattle-based advice columnist and LGBT activist, is going straight to the besieged kids themselves via the Internet.
In response to Billy Lucas’s death, Savage has created the “It Gets Better Project.” “I realized that with things like YouTube and social media, we can talk directly to these kids,” Savage told The New York Times. “We can make an end run around the schools that don’t protect them, from parents who want to keep gay kids isolated and churches that tell them they are sinful or disordered.”
The “It Gets Better” website features video clips of LGBT adults sharing their own high school horror stories, while telling kids to stay alive because brighter days are coming. So far, there have been 131 videos posted and more than 300,000 views. “Honestly, things got better they day I left high school,” says Terry Miller at one point. Miller is Savage’s long-time partner, and together they have a 13-year-old son.
The testimonials do not downplay the bigotry and abuse the LGBT teen audience may be facing. But the Web channel’s overall message is one of hope and “don’t give up.” Some clips include the occasional four-letter words, but nothing kids don’t hear 100 times a day at school. Teachers and Gay-Straight Alliance coordinators should always keep this valuable resource in mind.
“If my adult self could talk to my 14-year-old self and tell him anything … I’d tell him there really is a place for us, a place for you,” Savage says to the camera, quoting a lyric from West Side Story. “You will have friends who love and support you. You will find love … and community.”
For LGBT youth, that message can be the difference between giving up and growing up.
McCollum is a Teaching Tolerance blogger and children’s author living near Boulder, Colo.
In early September, Billy Lucas stopped growing up. He tied a horse’s lead around his neck and hanged himself in the barn. He was 15. Reports from friends and fellow students described a pattern of harassment at Greensburg High that had been escalating. The day he died, Billy had been suspended for lashing out verbally at those who were tormenting him. Administrators claimed ignorance of any problems. Sadly similar stories have been cropping up in the media lately.
News like this especially grieves members of the adult LGBT community, many of whom remember their own trauma and tribulations running the gauntlet of high school hallways. Studies repeatedly show that gay and questioning teens are much more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers, especially if they come from families who strongly disapprove of homosexuality. While many progressive communities have had the guts to battle homophobia in their schools, that awareness rarely extends beyond the ring of a city’s suburbs.
How to reach LGBT youth as well as others perceived as “different” trapped in insulated communities? Dan Savage, the Seattle-based advice columnist and LGBT activist, is going straight to the besieged kids themselves via the Internet.
In response to Billy Lucas’s death, Savage has created the “It Gets Better Project.” “I realized that with things like YouTube and social media, we can talk directly to these kids,” Savage told The New York Times. “We can make an end run around the schools that don’t protect them, from parents who want to keep gay kids isolated and churches that tell them they are sinful or disordered.”
The “It Gets Better” website features video clips of LGBT adults sharing their own high school horror stories, while telling kids to stay alive because brighter days are coming. So far, there have been 131 videos posted and more than 300,000 views. “Honestly, things got better they day I left high school,” says Terry Miller at one point. Miller is Savage’s long-time partner, and together they have a 13-year-old son.
The testimonials do not downplay the bigotry and abuse the LGBT teen audience may be facing. But the Web channel’s overall message is one of hope and “don’t give up.” Some clips include the occasional four-letter words, but nothing kids don’t hear 100 times a day at school. Teachers and Gay-Straight Alliance coordinators should always keep this valuable resource in mind.
“If my adult self could talk to my 14-year-old self and tell him anything … I’d tell him there really is a place for us, a place for you,” Savage says to the camera, quoting a lyric from West Side Story. “You will have friends who love and support you. You will find love … and community.”
For LGBT youth, that message can be the difference between giving up and growing up.
McCollum is a Teaching Tolerance blogger and children’s author living near Boulder, Colo.
Via JMG; HomoQuotable - Dan Savage
"The religious right points to the suicide rate among gay teenagers — which the religious right works so hard to drive up as evidence that the gay lifestyle is destructive. It's like intentionally running someone down with your car and then claiming that it isn't safe to walk the streets."Which is why I argued that every gay teen suicide is a victory for the religious right. Because, you see, your side does use those suicides to 'perpetuate [your] agenda.' Tony Perkins and all those other oddly effete defenders of 'Christian values' and 'traditional marriage' will point to this recent spate of gay teen suicides to argue against gay marriage, anti-bullying programs, against allowing gay people to serve in the military—basically, they'll gleefully use these tragedies to justify what they like to call the 'Christian, pro-family agenda.'" - Dan Savage, responding to a woman who wrote to say that her feelings were hurt by his claim that Christians are responsible for gay teen suicides.
Read Savage's complete response. It begins: "I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments. No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: fuck your feelings."
Friday, October 1, 2010
Via JMG: ACLU Staffers - It Gets Better
Just in from the ACLU:
We made our own videos to contribute to the It Gets Better Project, featuring several LGBT staffers from the national ACLU's New York and Washington, D.C. offices. Staff from many different departments — including fundraising, database, and human resources — stepped up to contribute. The ACLU's executive director, Anthony D. Romero, joined in the effort as well. Learn more about the ACLU LGBT Project's work on behalf of students and youth at www.aclu.org/safeschools.Watch both of these.
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