From MSNBC, via Digby’s blog. This is both heartbreaking and moving. I’m still always choked up by politicians motivated to take brave stands, since there are so few rewards for doing so. This especially hit home for me after reading the online comments of another voice toiling in darkness and obscurity who wonders what the point is in caring about the political world any longer. Maybe there is a point. Maybe it does get better.
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Lisa
October 16, 2010
Thank you for sharing this. This behavior is outrageous and tragic, and the officials who turn the other way should be tried for criminal negligence.
Helen Gerhardt
October 16, 2010
Thanks so much for posting this, oomoex. I was cheering and clapping and tearing up hearing this man’s witness and caring for the teens who have been suffering so much.
One of my friends committed suicide after having absorbed years of criticism from her Fundamentalist Christian family. I think of her today with such grief but a sense of such grace and thankfulness for the courage of men like this councilperson.
Take care,
Helen
omooex
October 16, 2010
Thanks Helen. It’s ironic. Kids often use the word gay as a code word for difference, and so often, kids from unconventional backgrounds or non-Western backgrounds are called gay as a default. So, even though I’m not gay, I got a lot of what young gay men and women must experience. I never seriously considered suicide when I was a teen, but I totally understand why certain people did. I knew that when I finally got out of high school, I would be able to shape my destiny as a straight person. That’s my straight privilege. But for a gay teen, it must seem like the real world will be like high school forever. And I think only in the last ten or fifteen years or so, has that been proven a wrong assumption.
Gator90
October 16, 2010
Really glad you posted this; I read Digby regularly but missed this item. G-d bless Mr. Burns.
When I was a kid, I was sometimes bullied as a perceived homosexual. The perception was inaccurate, but I was probably somewhat effeminate by the standards of the day. Later on, too big to be bullied and too thick for empathy, I had no problem using the words “gay” and “fag” as general pejoratives. But people can learn, and I did. And we are learning as a society, albeit slowly in fits & starts.
Omooex, you will be missed at UT. But the less you comment there, the more you post here, so I guess it evens out.