Good As You

Just wrote to Laurie Higgins:

Dear Laurie,

I beg of you to read this story about a young man who, at age 11, hung himself with an electrical cord JUST LAST WEEK because he was bullied and then tell me again that "Every school has more than ample anti-bullying policies in place."

You are an ignorant woman and your ignorance caused an 11 year-old boy to take his own life. Stop spreading your hatred and intolerance and open your blind eyes to see the reality.

If you truly love every one no matter what their sexual orientation may be, then practice what you preach and learn a little tolerance yourself.

Jamie McGonnigal
www.talkaboutequality.org

http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid78827.asp

""They … shouldn't be politicizing the classrooms," she said."

To this I say, look at ANY classroom in a high school. Most English courses offer political commentary on some issues (In my grade 12 year, we were using things like "Lord of the Flies" to discuss mob mentality and some 9/11 videos / documentaries to discuss terrorism). Science classrooms can also take political stances on some issues, such as energy and the like.

And let's not even get into political sciences and world issues classes that many high schools have as electives.

What I think is more baffling is the comparison of Homosexuality to smoking or doing drugs. Smoking and Drugs have both been proven scientifically that they are harmful to individuals, causing all sorts of conditions that threaten to end a person's life. Homosexuality doesn't, and the only time homosexuality is harmful to a person is when it is due to the actions of bigots and homophobes. It's a damned fallacy to try and compare harmful behaviours and choices to homosexuality.

I remember hearing how using your Left hand for writing would get you slapped on the hand with a ruler back in the day. This is the exact same thing, trying to encourage people to be something they're not.

There is nothing "pro-family" about the "pro-family" groups. They're truly sick people.

When I was in middle school, I was constantly taunted by other boys. I moved around a lot, and never really had time to make a lot of friends. When I was in 7th grade, I was surrounded by a group of five boys, who proceeded to ask me if I was gay, telling me I had to be a fag. It ended with the five of them picking me up and slamming me into the side walk right outside the school's administrative office.

A vice-principle of the school walked by, just after it happened. The kids ran off, and I was left lying on the side walk. Instead of asking if I was ok, or even just asking why I was lying on the side walk, the vice principle just walked into the building. If I'd been a foot or so to the left, he would have had to walk over me to get into the building, and I believe he would have.

My first class after lunch that day was gym, which was hellish enough. But that day we were running the mile. I tried to run, but I had such a pain in my tail bone, I couldn't do it. Ever time I stepped, it was like broken glass was rubbing against itself in my back. My gym teacher came up to me, and asked why I wasn't running. I told him what had happened at lunch, and he asked if I needed to go to the nurse. At the time, my mother and father were getting ready to split up, and we were living in a studio apartment. I couldn't go home to that. So I said no. The coach told me to just walk the mile, and when I was done to go to my next class.

When I got home, I tried to hide what had happened from my parents, because I didn't want to get yelled at. But when I got there, I laid down and then couldn't get back up. My parents took me to the emergency room, and after x-rays, we found out that my tail bone had cracked when I hit the side walk. My parents yelled at me for being so stupid and not coming home. I couldn't explain why I didn't want to come home, so I just kept my mouth shut.

Next up was the trip to the school to have my parents yell at someone else. Which was a nice change. We spoke to a different vice principle, who pulled out pictures of students, in kind a year book, and asked me to see if I could recognize any of them. I found three of the five. I then I took a week off school. To sit at home with my constantly angry parents.

When I went back, the other boys were all still there. Nothing happened to them. Their word against mine, I suppose.

It took several years, almost through highschool for my tail bone to heal correctly. Through out those years, sitting still was a chore, because I could never get comfortable. Especially in those chairs high schools have.

Throughout high school, I tried to be straight acting. I realized by about the second semester of my freshman year that I was most definitly gay. There'd been hints before that. My obessession with Luke Skywalker when I was six, where I insisted to my sister that was fine that I found him handsome, for example. For the most part I got through highschool without incident, but there were still those occasional problems with other students. As straight acting as we may try to be, for some of us, it's a losing battle.

At one point I did think about committing suicide. Not just because of the occasional bullying, but it was a factor to be sure.

I'm posting this long story because, when I look back at it now, I realize how close I really was to commiting suicide, and I realize how many young people do. And how many of those young people are GLBT. And I wonder what kind of families they come from. I wonder if they come from overly religious families, who constantly talk about how horrible it is to be gay. I wonder how many of them kill themselves because they think they are abominations in the eyes of the lord that they were taught to love and obey.

And I wonder how many parents afterwards, who still believe that homosexuality is a sin, also realize that commiting suicide is a sin. A terrible terrible sin. And how they reconcile that in their heads. I honestly can't imagine.

"We pay California teachers to teach -- by speaking in classrooms"

Then how do people teach in schools for the deaf and hard of hearing?