Joel Burns shares his moving personal story of surviving anti-gay bullying with his fellow Fort Worth City, TX, council members:
Hat tip: Towleroad
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Joel Burns shares his moving personal story of surviving anti-gay bullying with his fellow Fort Worth City, TX, council members:
Hat tip: Towleroad
Beautiful!
God bless him.
Raw, beautiful…and the difference was an accepting and supportive family. This, more than anything, will assure the survival of gay kids.
One of the first things that schools get very wrong, is punishing a child for self defense. Something that I experienced as well. By trying to fight back, I got suspended. So it made no difference who was wronged. It made no difference defining the wrongness of attacking a person for no reason, the message blurs that definition.
One of the young suicides, a straight A student, WAS suspended for defending himself. Something that sent him over the edge. If he’d had an unblemished record in school, something he could be proud of, then the school punishing him for something NECESSARY to do, added an unfair burden to an already unfair situation.
When adults do that, the rage and pain can build exponentially inside of you.
It will explode one way or another.
Either way, further victimizing a child by painting them the same as an assailant is confusing. There is nothing the bully is taught except that he can hurt you twofold.
They have exacted more on you, and are empowered by it. And it’s the school and the educators that are teaching that there is no real victimization. There is no REACTION to being wrong that can be defended.
And when a child, already defenseless in being assaulted, sees no defense coming from those in authority to do something about it that’s fair, the depth of understanding of fairness and right and wrong is further damaged.
The school has no credibility to be in that authority once that happens.
But they are.
I’ve been reading through conservative online websites and the typical responses that the articles express as well as the comment threads.
I wish that the anti gay could have their responses lined up side by side with what gay supportive people have said.
If it were possible to have serious comparisons made, the public would have a better idea of what the anti gay intend, their ideas and just how much to blame they really are.
And especially how they insist THEY would handle this and how they ARE handling it.
It’s all too easy to have each side talk past each other.
There really has to be a serious examination of this in forums where the comparisons are more than just sound bites and talking points.
Joel’s testimony, coming from a clean cut, handsome all American can go a long way in showing what gay young people BECOME if they have support and survive the onslaughts.
Unfortunately, the OBVIOUS, such as the character assassination of Kevin Jennings, the hard core rejection of campus GSA’s, the discrimination by the BSA, the military and other supportive environments and remarks by people like Carl Paladino and so on, show just how far up the rejection of gay people can go and what stereotypes remain entrenched in justifying it.
Right before our eyes, we can prove why these assaults occur, but the public isn’t as privy to it as they should be.
The IGB campaign can help a great deal.
But I want the anti gay to be cornered and have to explain themselves. I really want to see them squirm and be held accountable.
If they are going to have expensive anti gay campaigns to influence the court of public opinion, they must be made to OWN it when it all goes bad and kills children.
But the cowardice and denial doesn’t seem to have a depth.
I really hope this issue doesn’t get swept away so easily, because, unless we keep it forefront, those who need to hear this message, will miss it.