Crisis: Teenage Suicide

I don’t want to get preachy, but I am not the only person who is devastated and frightened by all of the teenage suicides of late.  September has been a terrible, terrible month.  My only explanation is that kids have recently returned to school, thereby immersing them in a sea of intolerance, hatred, and bullying. 

Oh yeah, I forgot one other explanation for the shocking increase in teenage suicides:  gays and lesbians are still treated as second class citizens, and in far too many towns, cities, counties, and states, homophobia is the norm, not the exception. 

Don’t believe me?  Then believe Ellen Degeneres along with a host of other credible voices on the issue.

Kids are dying.  Families are being ruined.  If you do not agree that a gay child is better than a dead child, then you are a sociopath.  Plain and simple.

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Another Gay Teen Kills Himself

Another very bright light has extinguished himself.  A brilliant violinist.  A good student.  A gay teenager who had not come out. 

Why did he kill himself?  Great question.  Because his douchebag roommate and another student at Rutgers secretly taped him having sex with another boy and POSTED IT ON THE GOD DAMN INTERNET!

Happily, they are being prosecuted.

Unhappily, Tyler Clementi’s family is heartbroken.  I do not know if they knew that Tyler was gay, but I do know this:  They would so much rather have a gay Tyler than a dead Tyler. 

And that is almost always the sad, sad reality.

Again, if you are a gay teenager who thinks that suicide is an option or who is considering suicide because of shame or fear of who you are or who your family or your friends or society thinks you should be, please seek help.  Suicide is never, ever the answer, and it never solves the problem; it just passes it on to others.

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